Binibining Pilipinas primer strikes cautionary notes

GUIDICELLI. Couldn’t provide needed focus and pertinence

Last March 23, we happened to catch the Binibining Pilipinas TV primer, expecting just the usual cavalcade of beautiful faces and figures. —Boy, were we in for an unwelcome surprise!

Not content to leave well enough alone, the very long backgrounder on this year’s 40 contenders took a number of extra steps that ended up “stretching” and distending the beauty pageant format way beyond its usual “pretty” parameters.

We’re all for innovation, but this particular attempt was efforted and eventually off-putting, because it required the pageant’s contestants to go beyond being beautiful and “prove” that they could also be sobbingly “sensitive,” self-empowered, amazingly motivated and wonderfully loyal and loving friends and relatives! —We should all be so lucky to possess just some of those sterling attributes!

Since the contestants weren’t professional performers, their depiction of all those admirable character traits was too often gauche and insincere. The bets who did most poorly were those charged to exemplify contestants who valued a great education above all else.

Also self-conscious in projection were the contestants tapped to depict the financially strapped progeny of farmers and such—because, how can you be believably api and kawawa with a pound of makeup and “panda” eyeshadow?

Most discomfitting of all was the primer’s preference for contestants with dismal stories of loss, deprivation and personal pain to feelingly share, most of them ending up breaking down on-cam to “convincingly” show what sensitive  creatures they were.

Alas, since practically everybody ended up crying a cumulative river of tears, the “heartfelt” display felt ordinary after a while—so much for the special touchy-feely display!

Scripted references

Primer host Matteo Guidicelli wasn’t much help in providing much-needed focus and pertinence. Acting as his cohosts were current  beauty queens who were there to inspire this year’s bets to similarly excel—but sometimes ended up doing no such thing.

What was the problem? They were admirably “packaged” and not insincere, but their effect was still “off” because they pushed the coveted illusion of selfless, “nation-boosting” beauty too relentlessly. Relax, everybody, it’s just a beauty pageant.

Another cautionary note was struck by our eventual realization—that there weren’t enough genuinely standout beauties in the pageant.

Logic would have it that, since this is a celebration of Filipina beauty, at least 10 of the 40 bets would be exceptionally lovely. But, we found ourselves counting up to six—and stopping.

Where were the real standouts? Perhaps some of them were buried under the heavy masks of makeup? Where, oh, where are today’s Pilar Pilapils and Lalaine Bennetts, inconvertible epitomes of natural beauty? Under all that “fierce” makeup, they must be there!