| Subject: Please click to see the details of this post and see if anybody agrees or not. |
Author:
wunderk
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Date Posted: 02:42:50 08/23/07 Thu
In reply to:
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's message, "This is interesting...." on 23:37:44 06/10/07 Sun
I also thought about this when MU changed the top 15 semifinalists to include 5 hand-picked contestants by the "Miss Universe Organization Staff". Considering how controversies (both good or bad) always make good PR since Donald Trump took over, I think for 2005, Indonesia was a hand-picked delegate for the fact that there were protests in that predominantly Muslim country against Miss Indonesia taking part. 2005 was the first time for years that Indonesia took part. Also, I think Norway (being half-Thai and Bangkok the host) was also a hand picked semifinalist. However, Thailand was "rewarded" in both 2006 and 2007 since Thai companies (such as BSC swimwear) had signed on as major sponsors of Miss Universe. Another hand-picked delegate that I could speculate about was Ukraine in 2007. If you watch the telecast closely, you will see Miss Ukraine-Universe 04 Oleksandra Nikolayenko (now Ukraine's MU franchise holder) sitting on the front row, very close to Mr Trump. She seems to have an extraordinary relations with the MUO ever since she was shockingly exclueded from the top 15 in 2004. (She was a judge in 2005 MU final...I mean how many non-finalists get to be a judge on the MU final telecast?) The above are all pure speculation from my part, consider it as a sort of an "educated guess", supported (in 2007's case), by the low score given by the final telecast judges to some of the contestants noted above. This all coming from my basic opinion of the Miss Universe pageant: That it is a business, and is run like a business. More than politics, it's business decisions or stories that have a good potential to make it to world news and indirectly increase ratings that matter. Let's face it, in many countries (INCLUDING Canada), Miss Universe (or any beauty pageant) only makes it to the news when there is a controversy related to it. Most of the mainstream media (for example the Toronto Star) would not carry a simple wire story about such and such crowned Miss Universe. However, those same media would certainly carry a story about such and such crowned Miss Universe amid anti-American (or, say feminists) sentiments that erupted in a violent protest outside the venue. Again, I emphasise these are strictly my personal opinion and speculation and I welcome comments from my fellow pageant fans regarding my points of view.
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