thoughts on undermployment; thoughts on pageantry

A friend of mine recently told me I need to take a vacation from unemployment. Looking back at my past month and coming weeks, I suppose I’m more underemployed than absolutely unemployed; the income trickles in here and there, and tomorrow morning I get to drive down to Stanford and assist in the training of future physicians by acting out a variety of symptoms as a Standardized Patient (SP, as we say in the underemployed performance biz).

Glamorous? Certainly. I get to wear a patient’s gown.

In other news in my underemployed writing & performing lifestyle, this past weekend I had the dubious honor of emceeing an Asian American male beauty pageant produced by API news/culture/politics magazine Hyphen. I made the error of assuming my audience would have a certain ethnic-ed sophistication, and opened with a spoken word satire that was very much not gotten by the otherwise enthusiastic crowd (if you clicked on that link, that audience sounded the opposite of how the beauty pageant audience sounded. except that pageant audience was several times larger, so the pageant silence was mo’ defeaning). The magazine has noble intentions with this event: each contestant represents a nonprofit organization, supposedly engaged in Good Works, and the winner of the pageant wins $1000 for his nonprofit org. In the process, the (waning, it seems to me, but probably just in certain circles, so I’m sure it’s mostly an enduring) stereotype of the a- or anti-sexual unattractive Asian American male is challenged, dismantled, destroyed; API masculinity is affirmed and celebrated; hypersexualized API women are off the hook in terms of being objectified; the audience has a lot of fun laughing at the Weird World that is The Beauty Pageant; and a very cool magazine raises much needed funds for itself.

STILL. Well, noble intentions aside, the “laughing at the Weird World that is The Beauty Pageant” (yes, I am quoting myself; I’m that much of a dick) part kind of has been compromised, it seems – from where I was standing anyway (on stage, drowning in a sea of peoples who thought obviously bad spoken word poetry was for real), the crowd seemed to really, really want their Guy to win, and for all the general popularity contest reasons. Plus, one of the three judges in the otherwise distinguished panel of impartial judges brought the contest down to a junior-high sort of level with an obvious preference for certain cool-kid contestants (yuck).

STILL. Overall, it was well done. I’m sure money was raised. I’m sure stereotypes were smashed. I’m sure community was built, and madly so – but I was glad to have had the pre-existing excuse for leaving right at 10pm, allowing me to flee the premises, and causing me to miss the coronation of the next pageant king.

(I was rushing off to a second engagement I had that night performing at the Purple Onion in SF’s North Beach – that’ll be in another post).

My main issue with the Mr. Hyphen contest is that, while on the surface clearly an attempt to present a cool, funny alternative to the female-objectifying beauty pageant, it ends up being another example of how guys get to participate in cooler shit than gals. It’s a FUN beauty pageant, in spite of everything I’ve said above regarding how the audience took it, and it’s an opportunity to show that an individual actively engaged in community work is someone to recognize and present as a model person. The judges evaluate the contestants not based solely on their talent, style, and eloquence, but also on their dedication to working on issues of concern in their communities. In this sense, the pageant is already NOT your traditional beauty pageant – humor is encouraged, being silly is encouraged, doing something surprising is encouraging.

For this reason, the pageant actually has a ton of potential to attract some really really cool contestants, who can turn the idea of a beauty pageant on its head.

For that reason, it should be an M. Hyphen pageant, not a mister and not a miss. Women should have the opportunity to be contestants as well – there’s just as much a need to challenge stereotypes about API women as there is to challenge stereotypes about API men, and the M. Hyphen contest could accomplish both. Plus, a mixed-gender/multigender (depending on how people are going to identify) would also help challenge the heteronormativity (yeah I said it! probably didn’t use it right though, but you know what I mean) generally associated with beauty pageants. If we’re going to challenge stereotypes, let’s go all the way…

I just think women should get to have fun too. And I think it’d make the event even more of a success. And this thing furthers the assumption of funny cool guys versus pretty girls.