Three not-so-beautiful winners of Miss World Chongqing had netizens talking
Alia | July 11th, 2012 - 9:42 pm
The contest was Miss World China. The winners were the top 3 in Chongqing region. The reaction from netizens was “So ugly!”
The Chongqing regional contest of Miss World China 2012 recently released pictures of its top 3 winners, but netizens didn’t seem to find any beauty in these three beauty queens. As a popular post on Sina Weibo concluded, “Chongqing is famous for its beauties, yet the top 3 of the Miss World Chongqing beauty pageant looked so ugly. If someone says they represent Chongqing’s beauties, I’d be ashamed to be a Chongqing native.”
“Bashing Chongqing beauty pageant” has stayed on Sina Weibo’s Top Trending Topic for 2 days. Most comments are mean and sarcastic. The 3 beauty queens have become a national laughing stock. For example, someone compared the three girls to the three main male characters from China’s ancient classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Netizens even photoshoped parts of the face of the third prize onto female celebrities to show why she can never look pretty. But these not-so-beautiful winners aren’t the only controversy of this pageant.
Who are their sugar daddies?
A judge for the contest who requested to remain anonymous told a newspaper in Chongqing: “We received quite some pressure when selecting the top 3 finalists. The decision wasn’t made by us judges. Personally, I feel disappointed about the results, too. I don’t think they [the top 3] truthfully represent the images of Chongqing beauties.”
Such responses from a judge confirmed netizens’ suspicion of backroom casting couch in the contest – many are asking “who are behind the selection process? Who are the sugar daddies of these winners?” In the minds of netizens, behind every backroom scandal, there must be a corrupted government official. So no wonder, in the current case and similarly in every other case, the government and the political system in China are the ones to blame. As netizen 李国斌律师 commented: “Where is our hope in a nation where the evil forces even reach their hands to entertainments like beauty pageants?”
Will a Chinese face upsetting to the eyes of the Chinese appealing to the eyes of Westerners?
The more interesting discussion out of the story is on the different beauty standards of a pretty Chinese face between China and the West. One of the three winners defended herself and said: “This is Miss World, an international beauty pageant. I hope people don’t be limited by their own outlook and don’t act like the frog in the shadow well. Please judge me using global beauty standards.”
Many netizens actually agreed with her. Netizen 紫罗静开 asked: “Are the judges foreigners?” Sophie_小星星 commented: “After all, this is Miss World. Foreigners have very different beauty standards from us. They may look very pretty to foreigners.” There has long been this myth that pretty Chinese women in the eyes of Westerners are considered ugly by Chinese standards. So where is the gap?
While the West tends to favor traditional Chinese facial features such as brownish skin, high cheekbones, flat round face and single eyelid narrow eyes, the Chinese prefer the opposite.
The West: Single eyelid narrow eyes vs. China: Big round cat eyes….like animated big
The West: Flat round face vs. China: pointed face with high nose…”pointed as a stabber” (锥子脸)
And of course, there is also the “perfectly tanned” in the West vs. the “as fair as possible” in China. Most Chinese women are firm believers in the old saying “Fair skin can make imperfections invisible” (一白遮三丑). In a word, foreigners prefer Chinese faces that look like a Terracotta Warrior and Chinese wish all their women look like someone walking out of a Japanese animation.
I’m from the U.S and I have to say, even by U.S standards these women are not that attractive. The ones on the right are borderline ugly. The only one who is considered cute is the one with too long false eyelashes on the left.
As for the weird beauty comment, that’s usually in ‘high’ fashion, where they like to push the extremes of the human face.
Personally, my friends and I all like the looks of liu wen but find it a more masculine look. Perfect mans face. While the looks of fan bingbing is a perfect woman face.
The winners are not steller but it does make sense to take into account different standards of beauty
The model and actress pictures are a prime example. While another commentor said it was cause they were “weird looking”…they are actually very attractive and interesting looking
As racist as this might be, many westerners are not exposed to a wide variety of Chinese or generally asian actors or models and so there is an appreciation for looks that are less like western looks. The models on the left are also quite pretty and less generic than the ones on the right. Its not that they are weird, but they look more different ethnically to westerners and MORE importaantly they look interesting and distinctive.
wooow. im ashamed to be asian. look at those girls! ugly by. average ppl standards. dont even come out of the house.
Any single photograph can be unflattering so I won’t judge based on one picture, certainly of the three girls the picture on the right most isn’t flattering. The other two girls are gorgeous and beautiful.
The Photoshops are just silly and insulting. You can take two very beautiful actors or models and photoshop bits from one to the other (especially if the lighting of the shots are different) and it’ll look horrific.
So let’s see……Chinese claim that “westerners” like ugly Chinese girls. But Chinese nationalistic toads will scream, “all our sisters are beautiful” then there is the beauty contest where some Chinese men selected some less than stellar females to win a rigged beauty contest and everyone guesses they these unattractive girls banged someone (Chinese?) to win the event. But if they are not beauties then how can a Chinese man do them? And how can some Chinese claim they are not “beauty sisters”? Then there is the problem I face every day of the truly unattractive female masses in see in China. Who is marrying most of them? I am guessing the same men that say “westerners” don’t know what a true Chinese beauty is. Then to post some pictures of freakish Asian models from the west as a comparison to popular pretty local Chinese stars? Most people won’t find that first ‘western Asian’ model at all attractive. She was picked because she is a freakish looking minority in the US. That is what they do in the modeling world. Most white chicks look normal but when the get black or Asian models many of them can be a bit unusual looking, that is what they are going for anyway. They want strange on the runway. Anyone get the feeling that Chinese talk out their asses 100% of the time? And that fan bing bing bang bong bung boo picture has a ton of PS.
question is… why wouldn’t sugar daddies just switch to better looking ones and make them winners?
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