H.O.C. exhibition highlights pageant culture

This month alone we’ve featured three separate pageants on our newscast and as the following story highlights, such events have become a cultural staple rivalled only by “riceandbeanschickenandsalad”.

B>Rita Mae Hyde, Coordinator, Pageants and Queens Exhibit
?People love going to pageants and seeing the ladies on stage. To define or redefine their own concept of beauty, and to see how that fits in to global perspective.?

Alyssa Noble, Reporting
The Institute for Cultural and Social Research today launched the Pageants and Queens Exhibit at the Belize House of Culture. And while you may think it?s only about the girls, think again. According to Rita Mae Hyde, Coordinator of the Exhibit, this display has a lot to do with the history of pageants.

Rita Mae Hyde
?They think it?s frivolous in nature, they don?t understand, perhaps it?s just a result of the copy cat syndrome. These girls are just trying to represent the idealized feminine on stage. Now we noticed that there are several other aspects to pageants. There?s the politics involved in it, the contradiction and controversies as in everything else. There is a whole historical context we wanted to put it into its context. So we wanted to give a cross section, a varied representation of pageants and we wanted to look at it not only from the perspective of the pageant organizers or from the public, but bring out things in the pageant that people might not primarily be aware of.?

The exhibit highlights also those contests and contestants that have been held in Belize since the nineteen forties.

Rita Mae Hyde
?It dates back from 1946. It goes through umm we have a picture of a Miss Garifuna queen. We don?t have the exact date on it. We welcome everybody to visit our exhibition and see for themselves first hand the history of pageants in Belize.?

Alyssa Noble reporting for News Five.