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Summary Of Pageants Parlors And Pretty Women By Blaine Roberts

1103 Words5 Pages

Since the dawn of humanity, women have been trying to achieve their personal idea of what beauty is. In the book “Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women”, one sees the author, Blaine Roberts, show the racial division between white women and black women as their idea of what beauty appeared as was completely opposite. Women of different color, size, attitude, mindset, and dreams all concurred that beauty was an important aspect for the Civil Rights movement. Roberts’ thesis, black and white perceptions of beauty both played a crucial role during the civil rights movement while the road that led them there was life changing, is depicted throughout her book. While things like the Jim Crow laws tried to put a gate on specific groups voicing their …show more content…

Characters Lynda Lee Mead and Anne Moody both had one goal, even though they agreed on nothing else— that beauty had a place in the civil rights movement. Mead was a student at the University of Mississippi, meaning one could assume that she had a very southern state of mind. In 1959, she was crowned Miss America and traveled all over the United States and beyond during the first three months of her reign. After returning home, she made a public announcement in front of the media at a prestigious luncheon honoring herself stating that she would not apologize for Mississippi’s actions during the civil rights movement. “The Jackson Daily News was happy to report that, as its headline read, ‘Lynda Lee Takes Up For Her State.’” She was grateful to come from the land of Dixie, and quick to defend her home and its people. On the other hand, a new Mississippi Queen was risen three years after Mead’s reign. Her name was Anne Moody— who gained her majesty whenever she was named ‘homecoming queen’. She later led a sit-in at her college, Tougaloo College, in 1963. She trudged through harsh treatment as condiments were thrown onto her during the sit-in, but she did not allow these actions to change her mind on taking a stand for what she believed in. While both characters— beauty queen and passionate, had a common goal, they both took different, yet similar approaches. The reactions that each woman received from society however, were totally opposite. In Mead’s case, one could assume that she was a very respected, iconic woman. Before Mead, the only other Mississippian crowned Miss. America was Mary Ann Mobley who crowned Lynda Lee Mead (I know this thanks to my experience and passion in pageants). It could be speculated that Mead was also highly favored since she kept the crown in the Magnolia State. Whenever she made her public proclamation, her statement was accepted and theorized into being something

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Anne Moody wrote the autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi where it begins in 1944 highlighting the struggles of her childhood as it progresses to her adult life in 1964. Moody sought a different path than the rest of her family which led her to be apart of the civil right movement that occurred. Coming of age in Mississippi starts by introducing the narrator of the story, Essie Mae. She discusses her childhood where her father left their family for another woman, and her mother struggles providing for her family. Essie Mae had a traumatic experience in her time on the plantation to where in her adult life she was “still haunted by dreams of the time we lived on Mr.Carter’s plantation.”

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According to Simon Robinson, of the Time International, in “A Pageant with a Purpose”, the twelve contestants that entered the Miss HIV stigma free pageant were competing to show people from around the world, that this disease does not have to make you different. From Robinson’s view description, the reader can gather ideas that using beauty pageants was not the best way to prove that people infected with HIV do not have to be looked at in a different light. In America, we view beauty queens in a very different manner than we do everyday people. They are setup on stage, given a hair and makeup specialist, and their purpose is to be considered perfect. It would seem that the only thing this pageant would bring is more attention to those with HIV, and not in a positive way.

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In Material Girl, Susan Bordo argues that fashion is generally conceived as “free play”, a way to express one’s creativity, but is also seen as a necessity to many females (Bordo 389). The free will in regard to fashion effaces social and material inequalities. Basically, certain “choices” of fashion are not really choices, due to historical discriminations based off factors such as gender, race, and social position. An example of these effacements can be found in the film Good Hair, which explores primarily African American women and their “choice” to change their hair to match cultural beauty standards. I am going to explicate black women’s choice to change their “big” hair (afro) to long, straight, silky, and flowing hair and show how it effaces economic racial inequalities, .

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