Miss Universe 2010

I know I should be talking about the Hostage Drama that took place last night, placing Manila erasing whatever's left of Manila's shine in the international and Asian tourist scene. But it seemes like everyone has already said his two cents worth on the matter. I will comment on it later.

Meanwhile, Miss Venus Raj....

She didn't fall off the stage, there was no wardrobe malfunction..unfortunately, the international press already named her answer as the only notabe glitch that happened on stage.

For someone who appeared so confident and smart, Miss Venus appears to have suffered from a bad case of stage fright. I think that she over-analyzed, over-prepared, and pressure cooked her brain before the pageant night such that when the spot-light was finally on her, she could only answer whatever popped into her brain.

She should have taken a deep breath, and listened to the question. I wonder if she was coached on how to handle these things. Of course she was. Perhaps her preparation for the question and answer segment was to practice fielding as many probable questions as possible and to memorize some standard answers, along the lines of "i would like to thank my family for always supporting me...". Geez.

I do not blame Ms. Venus, nor am I putting her down. How many of us have actually been on the Ms. Universe Pageant stage stading in front of millions of viewers? Gloria Diaz and Miriam Quiambao aside, not very many.

And speaking of Miriam, she suffered almost the same fate. Her graceful handling of an embarassing stumble placed her as one the the crowds early favorites. But her answer to the final question.... that was even more traumatizing because she came so close, and she had an early advantage.

So, moral of the story? Why the heck are we still watching beauty pageants? I thought they're so passe and have reached their peak until the advent of the reality shows? Well, because beauty pageants are the precursor for modern-age reality shows.

But before I delve into that other topic fully, which I will not because I feel dizzy just thinking about reality shows, I think that beauty pageant contestants must be trained how to listen to the question, analyze the underlying context of what is being asked and be confident to speak her own mind, not what her coaches told her what the "best" answer shoudl sound like.

Or let's just stick to beauty and scrap the question and answer portion. Then let's have a Nerd pageant where all contestants know how to listen to the question, ananlyze the underlying context and give a totally nerdy answer to please the audience. If there is anyone listening other than the contestants' mothers.