Fashion Shows, Strip Shows and Beauty Pageants; The Theatre of the Feminine Ideal

<div align="center"> <center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td> <img border="0" src="../../../graphics/Newfrontpage/scissorsNEWsmall.jpg" width="180" height="162"> </td> <td> <img border="0" src="../../../graphics/Newfrontpage/newname2.jpg" width="686" height="50"> The Costumer's Manifesto is written by Tara Maginnis, and proudly hosted by William Baker. THE MANIFESTO IS MUTATING!  IT IS TURNING INTO A WIKI THAT CAN BECOME THE HIVE MIND OF ALL COSTUMERS, FINALLY LIVING UP TO IT'S SLOGAN: "COSTUMERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!" YOU CAN HELP IN THIS PROCESS BY MOVING PAGES TO THE NEW SITE AT <a href="http://thecostumersmanifesto.com">THECOSTUMERSMANIFESTO.COM</a>, HELPING TO EDIT THE PAGES THAT ARE THERE ALREADY, AND ADDING YOUR OWN ORIGINAL INPUT.  </td> </tr> </center> </table> </div>  </center> Fashion Shows, Strip Shows and Beauty Pageants: The Theatre of The Feminine Ideal by TARA MAGINNIS (Under the direction of W. JOSEPH STELL) Table of Contents: <a href="dissabst.htm#ABSTRACT:">Abstract </a><a href="disstitl.htm">Title Page </a><a href="disstitl.htm#This work is dedicated to">Dedication </a><a href="disstitl.htm#Acknowledgements">Acknowledgements </a>Table of Illustrations <a href="dissch1a.htm">Chapter I: Introduction part a </a><a href="dissch1b.htm">part b </a><a href="dissch1c.htm">part c </a><a href="dissch2a.htm">Chapter II: The Audience part a </a><a href="dissch2b.htm">part b </a><a href="dissch2c.htm">part c </a><a href="chap3a.htm">Chapter III: The Ideal and the Reality of the Performer part a</a> <a href="chap3b.htm">part b </a><a href="chap3c.htm">part c </a><a href="chap4a.htm">Chapter IV: The Runway part a </a><a href="chap4b.htm">part b </a><a href="chap4c.htm">part c </a><a href="chap5a.htm">Chapter V: Conclusions </a><a href="dissnot1.htm">Notes to Chapter I </a><a href="notes2.htm">Notes to Chapter II </a><a href="notes3.htm">Notes to Chapter III </a><a href="notes4.htm">Notes to Chapter IV </a><a href="notes5.htm">Notes to Chapter V </a><a href="bibliogr.htm">Bibliography </a><a href="links.htm">Further Web Links, Books & Videos </a> <a name="ABSTRACT:">ABSTRACT:</a> This study is an analysis of fashion shows, strip shows and beauty pageants, and the methods used in their presentation, focusing on the similarity of the three presentation styles and the differences between their final results. Detailed descriptions of the three audience groups, performer images, and uses of stage space, are used to explain how the single format used by all three is adapted to idealize the female figure preferred by each audience. Fashion shows, strip shows and beauty pageants are shown to have a large number of structural similarities such as: predominantly female casts, use of a runway attached to the stage for promenading, a focus on the performer's costume as defining her image, silent performers promenading to music, and an emphasis on the performers as embodiments of ideal female sexuality. On the basis of these similarities the study postulates that these three genres of theatre are actually a single form ("the theatre of the feminine ideal") with three variations. The variations are then dissected in terms of audience expectations, the ideal embodied by the performer, and the use of stage space. Fashion show audiences, composed primarily of women, view models as substitute selves "with defects mercifully and miraculously eliminated." Strip show audiences, composed of men, imagine strippers as super-sexualized aggressive females. Middle-class family audiences view beauty queens as ideal daughter figures, representing youthful virtue. The performers' attempts to embody the preferred ideal of their audiences are shown to be the results of conscious effort by contrasting the projected images of performers with the reality of their lives. Physical staging techniques used by the performers to put the ideal in the correct spatial arrangement with each audience are discussed in relationship with Hall's theories of social, personal and intimate distance. The "theatre of the feminine ideal" is thus argued to be extremely flexible by this demonstration of the widely divergent ways these three genres of performance have adapted their common format to different uses. <a href="disstitl.htm">Go To Title Page</a>    <a href="http://www.clickXchange.com/fr.phtml?act=837192.16" target="_top"><img src="http://www.clickXchange.com/fd.phtml?act=837192.16" border="0"></a>   <div> The Costumer's Manifesto is proudly hosted by William Baker. </div> <a href="http://www.costumes.org">Home</a>   <a href="../../../advice/1pages/questions.htm">Questions</a>   <a href="../../../store/100pages/giftstore.htm">Buy Books and More</a>    <a href="../../../classes/254pages/teacherbio.htm">About Me</a> This Page is part of <a HREF="http://www.costumes.org">The Costumer's Manifesto</a> by <a href="mailto:tara@costumes.org">Tara Maginnis</a>, Ph.D.  Copyright 1996-2010.   You may print out any of these pages for non-profit educational use such as school papers, teacher handouts, or wall displays.  You may link to any page in my site.  </body> </html>