Last Week Tonight

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is a show with the genre of news satire, political satire and is also a talk show. The point of this episode is was to ask why society still gives into this demeaning beauty contest. The arguments are given by John Oliver and how he included sarcasm is to be valued and appreciated.

Beauty pageants are mostly about female objectification and the Miss America Pageant is no exception. The show was first started by evaluating the contestants based on their bodies. How they were scored was accordingly; 5 points for the head construction, 5 points for the limbs, 3 points for the torso, and so on.

(head construction examining)

(limb examining)

(torso examining)

For all the Miss America Organization's claim to be about 'style, service, scholarship, and success, since 1921'. It was hard to see what service is performed when pretty and unmarried women, with no history of pregnancy, who display their bikini-clad bodies in front of the jury. To support their claim to be selecting the 'role models' not pushy based on the superficial appearance, on current affairs, giving each a whole of 20 seconds to reply. This inevitably generates a whole set of viral videos of the contestants' dumb answers.

It is that, just like how the pageants give dumb answers, they also are given a very complex question to answer. From the show itself, a contestant was asked to literally solve the ISIS problem in just 20 seconds.

(This young woman was asked literally solve the ISIS issue, but nevertheless, she nailed it by giving the perfect answer in return)

Miss America also prides itself on being the "World's largest provider of scholarships" for women, claiming to make $45 million available for scholarships to those pageant's contestants. The trick comes in the word 'provider'. If one state-level pageant offers 4 scholarships, of which a winner could only take one, the amount of each is added up to the final total. Yet unfortunately, Oliver said that even if you assume the lowest possible number, the Miss America Organization's claim is still correct. For the reason why and for, the delights like the special appearance from Kathy Griffin and a description of Donald Trump by Oliver as a "clown made up of mummified foreskin and cotton candy" (the ugliest he calls).

(John asking Kathy Griffin her opinion about how the pageants are scored according to their body)

But it turns out to be only virtually true about the scholarships: the money is made available, but in reality, Miss America ends up spending only about one-tenth of the sum in scholarships. The possible scholarships that the contestants have been offered, instead of only the scholarships they decide to take. That is why they're the number of 45 million dollars in scholarships holds true. after Oliver read off all his facts, he made a point on how even the lowest number of actual scholarships given to Miss America is pageant contestants were more than any other female scholarship organization in the world. This is tremendously sad. The fact that this institution gives more women financial opportunities than any other agency in the world, even when they are known for degrading women's intellectual capacity while emphasizing their body size, facial structure, and spray tans instead, which is such a shame to women.

What is actually more troubling is that the organization is indeed the biggest provider of scholarships in the US exclusively for women. Not only is the sum too abysmally low, but it is contributed among women to choose first for their looks.

Oliver sums up the show in one sentence that how, in the wake of Emma Watson's speech at the UN, it was perfectly explained why there was a big need for feminism in 2014. He quotes it how "the scholarship program only looked up for unmarried, mint conditioned uterus, which also rewards working knowledge of butt adhesive technology". 

This episode from the show aired in 2014, which I still think it speaks the truth in today's world. Judging a person's worth based on 20-second answers with impossible or we can actually term it 'ridiculous' questions, odd displays of ventriloquist talents, and how a woman wears a bikini is not 21st century at all. but still, there is a lot of room for this kind of activity which must be put an end to.

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Source (https://youtu.be/oDPCmmZifE8, Last Week Tonight by John Oliver)