The contest began in the Summer of 1945 under the name “Bathing Beauty Queen”, organised by the Morecambe Local Council in partnership with the ‘Sunday Dispatch’ newspaper. Morecambe went on to become the home of Miss Great Britain between 1956 and 1989.
Through the years Miss Great Britain has evolved becoming one of ‘THE’ pageant systems to be part of.
The Miss Great Britain competition has helped launch the career of many well known names including: Miss GB 1957 Leila Williams (Blue Peter presenter), Miss GB 1976 Dinah May (actress), Miss GB 1984 Debbie Greenwood (TV presenter), Miss GB 2006 Danielle Lloyd (Model, TV Personality) and Miss GB 2007 Preeti Desai (Model, film actress).The contests have been aimed at a family audience – for the girls who entered, there was the lure of cash prizes, and potential fame and fortune.
Unless if you’ve lived under a rock in 2015 Zara Holland was crowned the winner of Miss Great Britain, in which she was recently de-crowned and replaced due to an altercation on the reality show ‘Love Island’. In which the organisers of the show said “to be clear we have no problem at all with sex-it is perfectly natural.We simply can’t condone what happened on national tv”, but I haven’t found anywhere on their website the official rules or responsibilities of Miss GB.
We are living in the 21st century and woman can be whomever they want to be, we have girls following the Karsdaians 24/7 on E! But a 20 year old woman can’t have sex on TV because that makes her bad role model, well she’s young and everyone makes mistakes they wish they can take back. The last time someone was stripped of their title/crown was back in 2006 when Danielle Lloyd lost the crown after stirring up scandals for posing nude for Playboy magazine and dating one of the judges during her participation in the pageant. (Danielle Lloyd has been re-instated into the Wall of Fame/ Previous winners as of 11 January 2010)
There recent decision to de-crown Zara has cause a massive backlash about the way the pageant has handled their behaviour, many stating that they had not advised her not to do a show called “Love Island”. Wondering if they knew and supported the decision (about Love Island) whatever happened on there could not be an act against the “Miss Great Britain” brand. Many celebs have come out in support of Zara and have even started a petition to get her re-crowned as Miss GB 2015/16, a lot of them critiquing the competition for being bullies.
I wonder if it had been a mans competition would we be even discussing this? Would there be a headline? When we want to live in a world of equals, this does not seem to be one of those situations – baring in mind this is a show that picks a winner solely based on their appearance. What does this tell young girls, that they have to act, dress and look a certain way to be pretty and adored. It seems very backwards in its thinking, we should be encouraging are younger generation to be themselves, make mistakes – because after all doesn’t this make them more relatable.
It seems that the pageant world has refused to move with the times, now starting to make itself irrelevant to a new audience – because they’ve moved passed this way of thinking. It’s not on TV anymore, therefore no dramatics, no bitchy backstage antics – nothing to interest the young girls who enjoy ‘Love Island, ‘Geordie Shore’ and everyones daily dose of E! Online.
I say change the platform, making it more daring. Bring it back to national television, change the worlds perception of beauty and the world of pageantry – because if you don’t this platform will soon sink into the background and be forgotten.