Beauty pageants provoke mixed reactions in New England. They’re too pretentious, too garish, too objectifying of their contestants. Mothers in Savannah may put makeup on their little girls and push them down the runway, but in Boston, not so much.
Boston University student Olivia Culpo’s victory in Sunday’s Miss USA pageant may prompt some New Englanders to give these competitions, or at least their contestants, another look. Culpo, a Rhode Island native, is not only an accomplished cellist and talented university student; she won the pageant, in part, based on her shrewd and magnanimous answer to the question of whether it would be fair for a transgender contestant to win Miss USA.
“I do think that that would be fair, but I can understand that people be a little apprehensive to take that road because there’s a tradition of natural-born women,” she replied. “But today where there are so many surgeries and so many people out there who have a need to change for a happier life, I do accept that because it’s a free country.”
Culpo’s victory was for more than good looks; it was for common sense and dignity.
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