Daily Report: Another Beauty Pageant Drag Show

I had another beauty contest to judge tonight, so you my readers are awarded with more photos of pretty girls (click on pictures for larger versions).



The contest was held in the Barangay of Danao... yet another Barangay of which I was not aware, north of town on the coastal highway, and then right up into the mountains and jungle. It had been raining and the road was only partly paved and muddy and rocky as all hell. Epril and I took a motorcycle taxi to get there, but had to hop off and walk part of the time.



These beauty pageants are a great way for me to learn about the various neighborhoods and villages that surround Jasaan. I also get to meet local bigwigs such as barangay captains and such. It's also a good opportunity to make a good impression as a member of the small expatriate community in Jasaan.



The show was the usual crop of girls... with some familiar faces missing and some new additions. It was the same show though that I've done 5 times before. I think I'm starting to get some experience at judging these shows.



One thing I've noticed is that these beauty queens seem to be taught everything they know about pageantry by transsexuals. The transgendered boys do a great job at stage makeup, but watching these pretty girls trying to walk like a gay boy thinks a girl should walk makes me cringe.



The fact is, the drag queens don't grasp the difference between modeling and pageantry. These girls pop and jiggle and flounce (and even vogue... gag) like models, when they should be gliding like beauty queens. Some of the girls even do the blank-face model look while they catwalk instead of the big smile.



Another complaint is that these girls walk on stage with drag queen attitude instead of beauty queen confidence. You can even see it in their eyes as they move around the stage, "Okay... step, step, step. Stop. Feet here. Pose. Turn head. Now smile like you own the place." Then their face goes blank as they go back to focusing on moving on to the next pose point.



But there's no contact with the audience... most of these girls seem to lack the confidence to do it. If one of these girls could walk out on stage and smile, wave, laugh, wink, and engage with as many members of the audience (especially the judges) as she can in the short period she has, she would win every one of these contests... but none of them do.



Instead, they focus on just the right pose, just the right feet placement, just the right outfit, matching jewelry to eye color. I don't know about the other judges, but I don't even look at the outfits. I do watch for balance and poise though.



What I look for most is a girl who looks comfortable on stage, who walks like she is relaxed and confident, who looks happy and friendly, and is cute or beautiful and just a little bit sexy. Really, 90% of these girls efforts and studies are misplaced.



Anyway, after the show (won by #4) it was over to a friend of my sister-in-law for a bite to eat at 11:30 at night. (It was fiesta time for this small village way up in the mountains.)



We were going to take a motorcycle back down the hill again, but ran into all of the beauty queens and their gay makeup artists loading into the back of an open-bed truck for the trip down the hill, which seemed safer and certainly promised to be more entertaining. (A truckload of Filipino F.I.T.Fashion Institute of Technology (NYC), the gayest college on the planet. boys and beauty queens? Yeah... that's a ride I'll hop onto.)



So we bounced down the hill in a queer third-world jungle version of a hayride, with plenty of falsetto shrieking and laughing and catty remarks about sore asses. It certainly was something worth writing about... although I did wind up filthy from the muddy bed of the truck, and Epril got a bit of a raspberry on her arm from where my butt accidentally pinched it on the metal railing.

I really am looking forward to the next pageant.

Oh: Update. I got the video of the Katubigan festival dancing up in the post below.