Culture
The New Face Of Islands Beauty
Pageants take on the third millennium
An audible groan of disbelief went softly through the crowd of nearly 2000 at the final night of the Miss South Pacific.
Host contestant, Miss Cook Islands Donna Tuara had just been read her written question. She had picked the question at random from a pile of rolled up papers in a kumete, or ceremonial bowl. It just happened to be the same question as one she had picked, also at random, two nights previously.
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As the host nation contestant, Tuara is well known locally as a tourism office worker. Her question? About tourism.
Tuara is held in warm pride by Cook Islanders for her local style and devotion to her home island, Mangaia. But Cook Islanders are also deeply wary of potential unfairness. They suspected a possible jack-up.
Not to worry.
There was a huge cheer when Tuara came first runner up and just as enthusiastic woops when Miss American Samoa, Lupe Aumavae, a charismatic social worker, was chosen as the 2002 Miss South Pacific.
“You have been so hospitable,” she said, standing and reaching out to the crowd after being crowned.
“And you are so full of love.”
If Cook Islanders are one part scepticism they are also two parts warm irreverence. After another huge cheer and a standing, one minute-long, ovation, large chunks of the crowd happily filed out the door before the ceremonies were even over.
No one minded.
“It was so nice,” says an astonished pageant delegate at an after-party. “Cook Islanders really clapped and cheered.”
Sponsors, delegates and contestants then retired to an upper deck to watch a 15-minute fireworks display and plough through some booze.
After midnight, delegates and supporters partied till they started blinking at sunrise while the contestants went to their ‘homes’ at the Rarotongan Beach Resort, the platinum sponsor of the event.
Aumavae thumped home the winning speech of the final night, deftly turning a question on its head about poverty in some Pacific Islands, and what she would do to lessen it.
“Poverty does exist in some Pacific Islands. What advice would I give to reduce this problem?”
Aumavae pauses. “Poverty, I feel, is quite a touchy subject as a Pacific Islander. I feel that in the Western eye they define poverty as not having a job to buy food, and having a big European home.”
“But, as a Pacific Islander, I feel that we live off our environment, and our lands, and our culture.”
Aumavae paused briefly before carrying on.“I feel that we are very rich in every way with all these things, but to a European they say, still, they don’t have any money.
“To improve it, I would say promote education so we can keep up with the changing world, and at the same time promote our rich and diverse cultures of the islands.”
PINA Nius Online reported on Miss American Samoa’s “winning smile” the next day and then gave her credentials.
Lupe Ane Kenape Aumavae, 22, is a high-tech social worker, in her position as programme coordinator and data officer with American Samoa’s Department of Human and Social Services.
Completing her masters in management and business administration through online studies at the University of Phoenix puts her among a tiny minority of technology pioneers in the region.
Aumavae already has a bachelor’s degree in political science and social work and a minor in Cultural Anthropology.
She also has a dry sense of humour.
Just before her question on the final night, compere JJ Browne, a warm veteran of beauty pageants, teases her with an island-style question: “Did you bring the whole tribe with you?”
“No,” she shoots back, silky smooth, “I was not able to.”
Organisers and everyone else laughed. As well as laughs, the organisers led by Cook Islands Beauty Pageant President Lisa Sadaraka, took a bow from Prime Minister Dr Robert Woonton.
“This is what the Pacific is about, the most valuable asset that we have,” says Woonton. “We don’t have oil or other riches. We have the cultures and diversity and the beautiful warm, women of the Pacific.
“Lisa and your team, you have done us proud. And to the sponsors who have contributed and helped make this a truly Pacific event.”
He was not just being politically polite.
From the start, for example, Sadaraka stayed media friendly, even when a reporter exposed an ugly rumour about the earlier Miss Cook Islands pageant. That rumour turned out to be wrong. She got an apology. But far from banning the reporter as is fashionable in some capitals, she also made sure he got invited to all the subsequent events.
In fact, Sadaraka’s all-woman committee invited a huge media presence. Three of the five judges were high-profile journalists. There was April Bruce, Nee Ieremia, TVNZ’s One News sports presenter; Lisa Touma, director of Tagata Pasifika, the islands programme on TVNZ; and Maire Bopp-Dupont, the region’s leading AIDS campaigner and journalist by profession.
Tagata Pasifika sent a TV crew for its programme, as did New Zealand’s TV3 for latish but still mainstream broadcast, giving the event a higher profile than it’s ever had.
But the organisers’ biggest triumph was the integrity of the pageant itself.
After years of behind-the-scenes suspicion and a few headlines about earlier Miss South Pacific events, the pageant appears to have reached a new media-savvy maturity.
Even the sceptics in the Cooks were thrilled with the pageant and its winning result. Critics have long complained about beauty-over-brains in pageants. They may have to change their story for the new Miss South Pacific.
