A Bikinied Muslim Miss USA

When I tell people that I study religion and beauty pageants in America, they usually ask, "What do beauty pageants have to do with religion?" "Everything," I reply. So I was excited to see that another pageant participants' religious beliefs are in the news—if only because it confirms my hypothesis.

This is the second consecutive year the Miss USA pageant prompted a media explosion surrounding the religious beliefs of one of its contestants. The attention given to Carrie Prejean and Rima Fakih prove, perhaps surprisingly, that a number of people still pay attention to beauty pageants in America.

Last year, many speculated that Prejean's answer to a question about same-sex marriage cost her the crown. Prejean's answer stemmed from her evangelical beliefs about marriage. Since then, she has talked about her Christianity on talk shows and in an autobiography. Many in the conservative Christian community embraced Prejean as one of their own, believing that she did not win because she stood up for her religious beliefs. Others questioned her youthful indiscretions. Fewer questioned her participation in the pageant that made her famous.

This year, for the first time, a Muslim was crowned Miss USA. Rima Fakih is a 24-year-old Lebanese American who identifies as both Muslim and Christian. In the days following the pageant, the Internet exploded with commentary about the winner. Fakih's faith yielded much press among her faith community, as Prejean's did last year. Some Muslims celebrated Fakih as an example of diversity within Islam. Others applauded her win as proof of wider acceptance of Muslims into American society. Still others criticized her participation as out of keeping with Islamic teaching.

The intriguing commonality between Prejean and Fakih is that their respective faith communities felt compelled to comment. Each woman's faith came to the fore as media praised, questioned, or criticized her religious affiliation. Moreover, each contestant negotiated her relationship to her religion in the midst of pageant participation and controversy. Fakih felt compelled to explain her participation, finally stating that religion should not be a factor for Miss USA winners. (She was also compelled to explain her pole-dancing lessons at a Michigan nightclub last year.) Christianity, on the other hand, finds itself so intertwined with the world of pageantry that it is no longer controversial for most Americans.

The desire for a Christian beauty to represent America runs deep. Fakih's case reminds me of another time in our country's history when ethnicity and religion were closely linked for a national beauty-contest winner. Bess Myerson, Miss New York, won Miss America in 1945. As the first (and still the only) Jewish Miss America, she faced criticism because of her religion. Indeed, pageant officials urged her to change her last name to something less Jewish so that she would be more widely accepted. Most Jews were thrilled with Myerson's win, recognizing it as another step toward cultural acceptance. Indeed, while some diversity of opinion may have existed among American Jews, history has not preserved it. Myerson, however, found herself an unwelcome guest in some parts of post-WWII America where anti-Semitism still flourished.

The need for Christians to hold national pageant titles raises questions for me about why Christians care so much. As a Christian, and despite the fact that I'm deeply intrigued by pageants and watch them regularly as a part of my research, somewhere deep inside I believe that I should not care about the nation's choice for "ideal beauty." Indeed, something seems awry when Christian ideals of beauty so perfectly match those of the world. The church ought to form alternative ideals of womanhood that are not dependent on what marketers from Victoria's Secret or Cosmo tell us. Christians should be the ones teaching girls how to be successful, confident people at home in their bodies. We should help them discover and portray the beauty of Christ to the world rather than expecting the world to teach our young women what it means to be beautiful.

Do I think Christians should stop participating in pageants? No. I'm not suggesting that it is sinful. Indeed, my research shows that women gain much from pageant participation. Rather, I'm cautioning Christians to resist laying claim to pageants. And, like the American Muslim community and the American Jewish community before that, I think Christians would do well to recognize that national beauty pageants are not celebrations of religion but of beauty. Rima Fakih, just as Bess Myerson, represents the current ideal of American beauty, not American Christianity.

Mandy E. McMichael is a Ph.D. candidate in religion at Duke University. Her dissertation is on religion and beauty pageants in the South. She wrote about Carrie Prejean and the history of U.S. beauty pageants last year.