Directed by Veena Rao and Emily Sheskin
2011, USA
The beauty pageant holds a troubled and often troubling place in pop culture. Though pageant proponents might promote the talent and interview components as proof of a well-rounded focus, contests like Miss America ultimately pit women against each other on the basis of physical appearance and thus reflect perceived beauty ideals over time. Even or especially as the nation becomes larger, that ideal has remained well thinner than the average, size 14. Even the women who look the part have been exposed to scandal for not living up to standards of character or purity that seem equally unrepresentative of the real lives of women. While the social prominence of pageants has decreased and their current role is more often a voyeuristic hope for catty drama, laughable ineloquence or, in the case of the child pageants that populate the reality television world, signs of bad parentage, the broader concern about how societal ideals affect the average woman remain real.
Released to coincide with Full Figured Fashion Week, There She Is is a short look into the American Beauties Plus Pageant. It follows friends Allison Kopach and Jenny Flores as they strive to be crowned as the elite among the larger half of the populace. With modest length and a focus limited to these two women, it does not strive to be a comprehensive exploration of the topic but still delivers a few moments of powerful insight.
One seeming conundrum, why women who are already on the outside of the beauty ideal looking in strive so hard to achieve other aspects of the ideal, including rigorous make-up regimes, is capably answered by Allison. She sheds light on how similar behaviors are interpreted differently depending on someone’s weight. Jenny is a suitable foil to Allison’s more self-assured nature. For all the confidence it takes to compete in a pageant, Jenny seems slightly more haunted by the pressure of social stigma, both in how it affects her relationships and in one decision revealed near the end of the documentary. This provides a nuanced and realistic look at a subject that could otherwise be made artificially optimistic. It displays the world without pretending it can change it overnight.
Watch the full film:
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