FOR THE second time in six years, India won the Miss Universe title. The pageant proved to be entertaining, exciting and exhilirating given that a unique trophy - the Golden Apple - was given to the first Miss Universe of the new millennium and that the event took place in Nicosia, Cyprus - dubbed as the birthplace of Aphrodite (the Goddess of Beauty). This is the second time in twenty-seven years that the contest was brought back to the Mediterranean, the first time having been held in Athens, Greece in 1973. Like its Greek counterpart - the Herod Atticus theater in the Acropolis - Nicosia's Eleftheria Stadium was designed to reflect the richness of antiquity. The huge mural of clouds in the background gave the illusion of an outdoor event, while the mosaic pattern on the stage floor enhanced the significant theme of universal harmony.

     Scholars contend that there are two versions of Aphrodite's birth. In Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite is mentioned as the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Another more interesting version - that of Hesiod's account - illustrates Aphrodite as being born from foam caused by the severed genitals of Uranus thrown into the sea. King Priam of Troy was said to have been awestruck by Aphrodite that he gave her a golden apple in recognition of her supreme beauty. Thus, Aphrodite may very well have been the first winner of a beauty contest with Olympic proportion.

     Two thousand years later, a new set of judges had been given the difficult task of selecting the first Miss Universe of the new millennium. Notice that all of the judges are based in the United States (Talley lives both in New York City and Paris). Of the seven judges, two (Talley and Alexis) are directly related with the beauty and fashion industry. The rest are associated with the entertainment industry, even Robbins who has become the favorite motivation guru of many celebrities. Let's see how the judges voted.

Pageant observers have sensed from the beginning that one girl would win it all - India's Lara Dutta. As soon as Lara won her national title, word was already out that she would conquer the universe, and so she did. But without obstacles. It appears that the judges did not have a unanimous winner. De la Fuente went directly to the Latin beauties - Colombia and Venezuela. Of all the judges, he was the most generous, giving virtually all 9s to the candidates except India to whom he gave an 8.88 in the evening gown competition. Meanwhile, choreographer Allen - who gave mostly 8s in the swimsuit competition - gave Dutta a whopping 9.99! Altschul, on the other hand, seemed the fairest; she gave Estonia's Evelyn Mikomagi and Dutta the same average score of 9.25, making them her top favorites, whereas four candidates (Spain, Venezuela, USA and France) make her second bests. Nevertheless, Altschul didn't give a score higher than a 9.50. You will see that two of the judges (Talley and Allen) gave the highest average scores to India whereas Alexis and Bell gave them to Venezuela - which indicates that Lara didn't take it all since Claudia Moreno proved to be a tough contender, even though she had replaced the original winner of Miss Venezuela, Martina Thorogood who successfully placed second in Miss World 1999.

To those of you who are not familiar with André Leon Talley, he is the flamboyant and big "editor at large" of American VOGUE fashion magazine. For someone who claims to be a fashion expert, he gave both Spain (Helen Lindes) and Venezuela (Claudia Moreno) each a score of 7.00 in the swimwear competition. Both candidates have beautiful bodies and in great shape. What exactly was Talley looking for? Compare their scores with that of Colombia (Catalina Acosta) who was wearing a one-piece swimsuit and was given a modest 8.60 by Talley (even co-hostess Ali Landy thought that Catalina had made the right choice). If Talley found Catalina's one-piece tasteful, Alexis on the other hand found it tasteless (she gave Catalina a 7.00). In the evening gown category, Talley gave poor marks to Estonia (7.00) and South Africa (7.60), yet these candidates' simple to traditional gowns appear less favorable than Zimbabwe's horrific beaded outfit (8.80).

The Judges

• Tony Robbins / motivational speaker
• Catherine Bell / actress
• André Leon Talley / fashion expert
• Kim Alexis / fashion model
• Cristian De la Fuente / Chilean-born actor
• Debbie Allen / choreographer
• Serena Altschul / MTV veejay

How the Judges Voted

CONTESTANT	Robbins	Bell	Talley	Alexis	De la Fuente	Allen	Altschul	Average
SPAIN
Swimwear	9.40	9.20	7.00	9.50	9.50	8.50	8.75	9.07
Evening Gown	9.60	9.80	9.70	9.30	9.45	9.30	9.50	9.51
COLOMBIA
Swimwear	8.50	9.00	8.60	7.00	9.85	8.20	9.00	8.66
Evening Gown	9.70	9.50	9.00	9.80	9.93	9.60	8.75	9.52
ZIMBABWE
Swimwear	8.30	9.40	8.00	9.50	9.00	8.50	8.50	8.74
Evening Gown	8.30	9.40	8.80	9.50	9.00	9.20	8.00	8.94
ESTONIA
Swimwear	9.30	8.70	8.50	9.00	9.45	8.40	9.00	8.90
Evening Gown	9.40	9.00	7.00	8.70	9.66	8.60	9.50	9.04
VENEZUELA
Swimwear	9.35	9.70	7.00	9.80	9.30	9.50	9.00	9.37
Evening Gown	9.73	9.80	9.20	9.30	9.70	9.99	9.25	9.55
SOUTH AFRICA
Swimwear	8.20	8.80	8.70	8.00	9.20	8.00	9.00	8.54
Evening Gown	8.30	8.90	7.60	9.00	9.20	8.80	8.75	8.75
USA
Swimwear	8.90	9.10	9.80	9.00	9.10	9.40	8.75	9.10
Evening Gown	9.00	9.20	9.50	8.70	9.00	9.99	9.50	9.24
CANADA
Swimwear	9.80	9.50	8.90	9.80	9.60	8.40	8.75	9.31
Evening Gown	9.75	8.70	8.00	9.30	9.10	8.50	9.25	8.97
INDIA
Swimwear	8.20	9.50	9.90	9.30	9.10	9.80	9.50	9.44
Evening Gown	9.00	9.80	9.90	9.30	8.88	9.99	9.00	9.40
FRANCE
Swimwear	8.40	8.40	8.50	8.70	9.14	8.20	9.00	9.14
Evening Gown	8.80	8.80	9.00	8.80	9.00	9.00	9.25	8.92

Average Score of the Top Three Candidates Per Judge

Robbins (1) Canada, 9.775 (2) Venezuela, 9.54 (3) Spain, 9.50

Bell (1) Venezuela, 9.75 (2)India, 9.65 (3) Spain, 9.50

Talley (1) India, 9.90 (2) USA, 9.65 (3) Colombia, 8.80

Alexis (1) Venezuela, 9.55; Canada, 9.55 (2) Zimbabwe, 9.50 (3) India, 9.30

De la Fuente (1) Colombia, 9.89 (2) Estonia, 9.55 (3) Venezuela, 9.50

Allen (1) India, 9.895 (2) Venezuela, 9.745 (3) USA, 9.695

Altschul (1) Estonia, 9.25; India, 9.25 (2) Spain, 9.125; Venezuela, 9.125; USA, 9.125; France, 9.125
(3) Canada, 9.00

Uppers

• The use of the aerial gymnasts (to be repeated in the 2002 production) underscored the significance of beauty and athleticism that was cherished in ancient times. The use of topless muscular young men - supposedly as young Prometheuses - carrying torches during the swimsuit competition - reinforced the idea that men could be just as beautiful and sexy as women. What do you expect? Cyprus was influenced by the Greeks who worshipped the male form in ancient times!


• It was the first time in the history of Miss Universe production (that I know of) tha t the candidates had to use a prop - lit white balls during the Parade of Nations. I wasn't sure what the balls represented. Unripened apples? Energy balls? Who knows. Anyway, these balls fill the entire stage with radiance and glitter.


• Sinbad as host. He's funny without being vulgar, he's talkative without being chatty. He surely knew how to make the girls feel relaxed and confident.


• Ali Landry and Julie Moran - their delivery of color commentaries is a big improvement from the years past. Ali is looking better than ever.


• Canada's Kim Yee who - besides Lara Dutta - stole the show with her personality and candidness.


• Venezuela's Claudia Moreno who made a true effort in responding to all the questions in English.

Downers

• I said it before and I'm saying it again: let the girls introduce themselves during the Parade of Nations. It's bad enough that they were not wearing their national costumes, but to deprive them of self-expression is unacceptable.


• Sashes? No Sashes? Sashes? MUO - make up your mind! We pageant fans want to see the delegates take pride of their countries by wearing their sashes. Okay, if the girls don't want to wear them during the swimsuit and the evening gown competitions, at least flash the name of the country on the screen. Also, why did the Top Three have to remove their sashes during the announcement of the winner? Without Lara's "India" sash, no one (that is, if you're strictly looking on an image without text) could have guessed where she came from.


• The absence of former titleholders. Why didn't anyone invite them? Does MUO prefer to focus on the youth market and to not show "old" beauties? If this was the case, then it would be such a shame since true beauty endures.


• I am repeating what I said from last year's show: the absence of the isolation booth during the final question segment. The very idea of replacing the booth with a stereophonic headset is absurd. Not only is the headset a detriment to the finalist's coiffure (thus makes her less elegant), but it diminishes every chance for the remaining finalists to relate with each other - something that can be done otherwise inside the booth.


• Abandoning the interview of the semi-finalists in favor of a catwalk. It was bad enough that we didn't hear all of the delegates introduce themselves in the beginning, but why did they get rid of the semi-finalist interviews as well? I would have wanted to have known the girls much better.


• The new female Spanish-speaking interpreter (also from Precision Translating Services) who botched Miss Spain's final answer. In response to the question, "There are protesters outside right now who say pageants are demeaning to women. Prove them that they are wrong." Helen replied in Spanish, "Yo creo que...los concursos de belleza pue...deberían de ser... ummm... apoyados por todo el mundo porque no sólo se trata de belleza y de algo masculino sino también de lo que sentimos nosotras las mujeres que tenemos derecho a expresarnos, a expresar nuestra belleza y a decir lo que sentimos y yo creo que una mujer bella pue... es muy bien escuchada por todo lo demás."
  

  This is the way the Spanish-speaking interpreter translated Helen's response: I think that beauty pageants should be like respected by everybody because I think that beautiful women also, ah... deserve respect and I think we should be heard as beautiful women also." Not only was the translator's work utterly mediocre, but it was also slightly misleading. She should have translated Helen's last statement as such: "... and I believe that a beautiful woman is very well listened to by the public." Or even better, "I believe that people listen more attentively to a beautiful woman."




The Top Six Finalists & Their Average Scores

VENEZUELA	9.46
INDIA	9.42
SPAIN	9.29
USA	9.17
CANADA	9.14
COLOMBIA	9.07





Photos courtesy of the Miss Universe Organization



Text by Rafael Robert Delfin, 5/30/2002.

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2006 CRITICAL BEAUTY. All rights reserved.