Pageant Protester Hits Contest ‘Indignities’

Michelle Anderson, who staged an anti-pageant protest during the 65th Miss California awards ceremony Monday night, said Tuesday that she plotted her yearlong charade to expose the indignities that such contests impose on women.

“The pageant creates a false icon of how women should look that is unhealthy and detrimental to women,” the 21-year-old Anderson, who represented Santa Cruz, said at a press conference. “It tells women to starve themselves in order to fit this image the pageant officials deem beautiful. And that is absolutely ridiculous.”

Anderson, one of 42 entrants in this year’s pageant held at the San Diego Civic Center, was standing at the back of the stage moments before the winner, Marlise Sharleen Ricardos of San Pedro, was announced. As Ricardos, a 26-year-old aspiring actress, was being crowned, Anderson rushed to the front of the stage and unfurled from her cleavage a white silk cloth that read, “Pageants Hurt All Women.” Anderson was quickly apprehended by security guards and carried off the stage.

In a separate press conference Tuesday, Ricardos and pageant president Robert W. Arnhym, countered many of the protesters’ allegations. Ricardos called the pageant a scholarship, rather than a beauty contest, and praised the event--which awarded her a $10,000 scholarship--for giving her an opportunity to further her education.

‘50% Is Based on Talent’

“Our physical appearance counts for only one-third in determining a winner,” said Ricardos, a former drama student at USC who is also training at the Beverly Hills Playhouse (under the direction of Milton Katsellas.)

“And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” she said. “I believe it’s important nowadays to look good; it helps portray a professional image. But the pageant also stress a lot more than that: 50% is based on talent and half of that is based on an interview where we have an opportunity to express our career goals.”

The pageant was moved to San Diego three years ago from Santa Cruz, which officials deemed unsuitable after annual protests gathered crowds of more than 1,000 people. Arnhym, the pageant president, said the size of the protest groups has dwindled since the move and estimated Monday night’s protest group at less than 100.

If the number of protesters has diminished since the move to San Diego, Anderson’s disruption drew far more attention than the group outside.

Anderson said her charade has been in the planning stages for more than a year.

“We were trying to think of an effective way to protest the pageant when the idea struck me: What if one of us entered the pageant?” Anderson said. In her first attempt to qualify for the statewide event, Anderson placed as a runner-up in the 1987 Miss Santa Cruz contest.

But this year, she was crowned as the local winner, and as she puts it, “infiltrated the pageant to expose the indignations suffered when you parade around in a swimsuit.”

“If I had won the Miss California pageant I would have kept quiet and tried to go all the way and win the Miss America pageant,” Anderson said. “Then, I would have made my statement.”

Anderson said the protest plan was a secret that only a few people knew: her parents and a few close friends, including Ann Simonton, 35, a former professional model who gained notoriety last year when she dressed her body with slices of beef to symbolize her belief that the pageant treats women like meat.

“The pageant touts how much they give the winner in scholarship money and how much they promote education, but that’s nonsense,” Anderson said. She said training for the pageant became a full-time job and detracted from her education.

“I had to suspend my class work at UC Santa Cruz for three months, learn how to walk, learn how to do the perfect pageant turn in front of judges. I took voice lessons for the talent competition,” Anderson said. Anderson--who is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and naturally weighs 150 pounds but dropped to 135 for the competition--said she spent about $4,500 in expenses, including travel fare, haircuts and clothes, to reach this level of pageant competition.

“So what if they give you $10,000 scholarship if you have to invest at least that much and take time off from school?” Anderson asked.

Studies Encouraged

Arnhym said that each participant’s local pageant committee covers all the event’s mandatory expenses and that the pageant encourages participants to continue their studies.

“They have to serve a one-year reign as Miss California, but during that entire time we encourage a winner, if she is a student, to continue her studies by carrying a lighter course load,” Arnhym said.

Anderson also objected to the methods that competitors have to use to win beauty pageants. She said, for example, that participants use duct tape to support their breasts during swimsuit competitions.

Ricardos and Arnhym denied that contestants used duct tape. Miss Torrance, Renee Kenneth, 24, said that she also is unaware of contestants using duct tape and that her expenses were paid by her local pageant committee.

‘Bright, Intelligent’

Kenneth, who aspires to become a news reporter, said she applied scholarship money won from previous pageants to pay for her education at Cal State Fullerton.

“Look, I’m a bright, intelligent, young woman,” Kenneth said. “If the pageant was really as negative, unscrupulous and demeaning as they (critics) say it is, do you really think I would be participating?”

Ricardos won the competition Monday in her fourth try for the crown.