Last spring, I was abroad in Santiago, Chile, and while I was there I dated a television producer. He was then working on a WWF-style wrestling show, the first of its kind to air in Chile.
One night, during a pretty intense argument, he told me that as a television producer surrounded by beautiful people, he had options?he could date girls 10 times better looking than I was. Shocked that he’d so bluntly put my looks on the table?something most Americans only do subtly?I asked him what he meant.
“Well, face it. You wouldn’t win any beauty pageants.”
I stormed out of his car indignant. How dare he put so much emphasis on how I looked! What did that matter anyway? I was smart, a fantastic conversationalist and a marvelous card player, truly a catch regardless of looks. Date me because of my looks? How shallow! And anyway, 10 times better looking? I’d buy one or two times, possibly three, but 10 times better? Not win any beauty pageants? Obviously he wasn’t acquainted with my high school homecoming court track record.
My northern Florida high school upheld the ridiculous tradition of a homecoming court. This meant that a group of girls were elected to select male escorts and march around on the football field during the homecoming game. In theory, I thought the idea was stupid. It was too much like beauty pageants, whose image had been cemented in my head by watching footage from either child beauty pageants plagued by redneck parents yelling at their kids to get their dance steps right, or by adult beauty pageants whose contestants slathered Vaseline on their teeth to get that winning smile. Plus, your value was on the inside?brains and personality always trumped looks. All of that said, I wanted to win the damn contest. The key was just acting like I didn’t.
I was introduced to the practice during my first year of high school. The rules were a complex matrix?you had to be nominated and selected in at least three English classes. Then, you would be entered on the ballot, and if you were in the top three on the ballot, you were on the homecoming court. The process took an excruciating month, which was filled with awkward interactions. Statements like, “I voted for you,” I answered with a lame, “Uh, thanks.” When I was asked if I thought I would win, I tried to change the subject.
That first year I got on the court. The responsibilities were pretty simple: Buy a dress, walk around on the football field, stand there and smile. I thought I executed these responsibilities pretty flawlessly, but sophomore year I made it to the ballot stage, but was shutdown for the court. Junior year I made a victorious comeback and got to buy a new dress and walk around. Of course, I acted like homecoming was silly and that it didn’t matter to me that I was on the court. But deep inside, I knew … I was a winner!
Senior year brought mixed results. I didn’t make the homecoming court or prom court, but there were still superlatives. My school voted on categories like “Most Artistic,” “Best Dressed” and “Shyest.” There was also “Most Likely to Succeed,” but on the ballot it was spelled “secede,” so I didn’t know if I should have voted for who I thought would be most likely to do well in life, or who was most likely to withdraw from the United States and form their own union.
I was gunning for “Most Humorous” and kept telling my friends to vote for me because, “Hey, it’d be funny!” “Most Humorous” seemed acceptable, something I’d like to be known for. Instead, I tied with another girl for “Most Attractive.” I’m not quite sure how we ended up tying for the title of “Most,” but it was a superlative, and I wasn’t looking to get it taken away, so I kept quiet.
On the day of superlative photos, I was off on a debate team trip, reason enough to get the award revoked. I didn’t make it on the original page. Instead, on the next page is a picture of me by myself in the cafeteria, curled up in a booth eating Fritos with the caption, “Gina ‘Voted Most Attractive’ Pace enjoys her senior dining privileges in the cafeteria.” I don’t know when that photo was taken, or why I looked like such a goofball, but that’s my gift to posterity for my high school.
Walking in from the argument that night in Chile, I could have realized that we weren’t that different. For all my posturing to the contrary, all those contests were important to me. I could have admitted that even though I told myself that grades or debate were more important, I put an awful lot of weight on those silly competitions. I could have admitted that. Instead, I thought, “Not win beauty pageants? Oh, I can. If they are small enough.”
Gina Pace is a senior in the School of Foreign Service and senior writer of The Georgetown Voice. She wants to know where Swan’s cup is at.
