Miss Landmine Angola -- beauty contest for landmine survivors
The Miss Landmine Angola 2008 competition was created by a Norwegian artist called Morten Traavik -- it's been controversial, but has some laudable objectives:
Link (via Neatorama)THE MISS LANDMINE MANIFESTO (in no particular order)
* Female pride and empowerment.
* Disabled pride and empowerment.
* Global and local landmine awareness and information.
* Challenge inferiority and/or guilt complexes that hinder creativity- historical, cultural, social, personal, African, European.
* Question established concepts of physical perfection.
* Challenge old and ingrown concepts of cultural cooperation.
* Celebrate true beauty.
* Replace the passive term 'Victim' with the active term 'Survivor'
the latest
latest episodes
why are women judged on external beauty, tits and ass, looking good in a bikini?
KQED recently aired a show about Ms Navajo Nation, where the women were tested on everything BUT their physical sex appeal.
Go figure!
I think the project really worked. One thing is the subtle attention to details, such as detailed info on the mine that brought the person to the contest, so to speak. Russia, China, Cuba, Romania, etc. - except for Russia, I didn't even know all these countries were selling weapons there ! This juts shows how big the interests are in maintaining war in general.
It also (hopefully) helps to bring the horror of war closer, by introducing the victims. Just because, you know, "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"
This is ingenious. I like to think of myself as someone who confronts and works against his prejudices, but this pushes buttons (that really need to be pushed). What's fantastic is that it doesn't attack anyone - it's a completely positive way of forcing people to think about important issues.
This is something which I think could be learned from in US political discourse. Right now, debates tend to get very polarised and accusatory (and the debaters consequently lose sight of the issues themselves). Subtle, positive and ideology-neutral is definitely the way to go.
Just a thought...
Love it.
I was a soldier in Afghanistan and I saw many people with missing feet/lower legs. There was even a UN relief agency for people missing limbs.
It breaks my heart to think about people wounded like this, so I try not to, except in small doses, otherwise the world seems unbearable. But I have a lot of sympathy/empathy for them, and I appreciate what the miss landmine contest is trying to accomplish. It is a visceral feeling to look at healthy young people who are innocent victims.