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From The Asian Reporter, V17, #24 (June 12, 2007), page 7.
Contest over our universe
At the end of May, Miss Japan Riyo Mori left Mexico City and returned to her family’s small town of Shizuoka, wearing the Miss Universe crown. Beauty contests are still big in most if not all Asian societies — but this column is not about whether those pageants are good or bad for women. Those arguments, particularly angry Western ones, hurt my head. Shouting always leaves everyone senseless. Sore.
In fact, this essay is not about Ms. Mori at all, though you’ve got to be happy for her grandma, who foresaw Ms. Mori’s big win long-long ago. And you have to share her mother’s pride, a local dance master on the slope of Mount Fuji-san.
Indeed, this article is actually about Miss USA Rachel Smith. It’s about how mistreated she was during her stay in Mexico City, site of the 2007 Miss Universe Pageant. It was real bad.
In the tense days ahead of the contest, Miss USA was jeered at several group appearances around the city. During the pageant, when it was her turn at the evening gown contest, boisterous audience members cheered when Ms. Smith slipped off a high heel, onto her bottom, right there on stage. Some even booed her, again and again during those already vulnerable moments of her on-air interview.
It all got broadcast, all over. Both her humiliation and that audience’s ugliness.
How it (they) got so bad
Over this last week, I wondered about those folks’ awful lack of civility. I worried aloud around kitchen tables with Mexican and Mexican-American family and friends. I wanted to know why. This nastiness is not characteristic of our wobbly planet’s Spanish-speaking peoples. It is totally inconsistent with any traditional notions of hospitality. It’s completely contrary to all social expectations of solid masculine behavior. Not Machismo (protecting and providing for women and children).
So, how did this thing get so bad — why did folks get so foul — on that awful night in that great metropolitan city? I put it to best buds between bites.
The answer came quick. The explanation sounded reasonable. Darn near understandable.
Getting even.
A folk easily characterized as ordinarily generous to a fault, accounted for bad behavior by talking about getting even with America. Ogh, this has gone busuk, I said to myself. Not to them.
I said nothing, not because I’m reluctant to be emotionally honest with open-hearted people, but because "this thing," because these folks, have gone waaay too far for a simple fix over coffee and dessert.
How it got so bad all over
To make matters even worse, much worse: Family and friends in Indonesia and India, in Iran and Egypt, in Spain and Netherlands, even in Canada, are about as angry, maybe as vengeful if they get a chance, as our neighbors just south of California.
And they’ll tell you the same thing: After September 11, 2001 America went to hell. No-no, America made hell for many-many people. U.S. leaders and their followers (you and me) unleashed overwhelming cruelty.
Our violence in Iraq and Afghanistan has likewise overwhelmed our formerly optimistic and generous American society. Our leaders insist we are in a "battle over our border," as if regular families weren’t living on both sides of our shared dotted line. We believe we are in a "fight for immigration reform," when what’s simply happening all over town is men working to make their mothers and wives proud of them. What you see in café kitchens and hotel basements is women thinking of their kids’ school clothes. Common sense aside, Mother Mexico and her ambitious children are made out as threats to American security.
All this so-called battling and fighting and threatening has made us mean. Very mean. And naturally, recipients of that nastiness will reciprocate when an opportunity avails. Especially us guys.
On May 28, in Mexico City, Rio Mori was crowned the 2007 Miss Universe. And that’s good for her, her family, her nation. A sweet dream come true. But during that same pageant, Rachel Smith, someone’s 22-year-old daughter from Tennessee was humiliated. A kid just out of college got punished for the excesses of our White House, the cowardice of our Congress, and the surrender of us followers to all that. And that is a nightmare.