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I want to change my life
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ISBN: 1443864749 1443862169 1322051364 9781443864749 9781443862165 Year: 2014 Publisher: Newcastle upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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Competition talent shows have been among the most popular on television in the 21st century. The producers of these shows claim to give ordinary people extraordinary opportunities to change their lives by showcasing a specific skill leading to a new career trajectory. Most participants will claim that they entered to get a big break and to develop a career they have always dreamed of. To what extent do these shows deliver on such promises? Following through what happens to leading contestant...

The most beautiful girl in the world
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ISBN: 0520922603 0585299749 9780520922600 9780585299747 0520217896 0520217918 9780520217911 0520217918 9780520217898 0520217896 Year: 1999 Publisher: Berkeley University of California Press

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Sarah Banet-Weiser complicates the standard feminist take on beauty pageants in this intriguing look at a hotly contested but enduringly popular American ritual. She focuses on the Miss America pageant in particular, considering its claim to be an accurate representation of the diversity of contemporary American women. Exploring the cultural constructions and legitimations that go on during the long process of the pageant, Banet-Weiser depicts the beauty pageant stage as a place where concerns about national identity, cultural hopes and desires, and anxieties about race and gender are crystallized and condensed. The beauty pageant, she convincingly demonstrates, is a profoundly political arena deserving of serious study. Drawing on cultural criticism, ethnographic research, and interviews with pageant participants and officials, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World illustrates how contestants invent and reinvent themselves while articulating the female body as a national body. Banet-Weiser finds that most pageants are characterized by the ambivalence of contemporary "liberal" feminism, which encourages individual achievement, self-determination, and civic responsibility, while simultaneously promoting very conventional notions of beauty. The book explores the many different aspects of the Miss America pageant, including the swimsuit, the interview, and the talent competitions. It also takes a closer look at some extraordinary Miss Americas, such as Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America; Vanessa Williams, the first African American Miss America; and Heather Whitestone, the first Miss America with a disability.

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