A Dramatic Beauty Pageant Rope Bridge Collapses

Beauty pageants, whose roots trace back centuries, have become a worldwide phenomenon that draw on local and international audiences and span every conceivable group and interest. They can be seen in films, newsreels, and on television around the world and have been influenced by the rise of globalization, decolonization, and nationalism.

A dramatic moment caught on video has captured 30 beauty queens plunging into a pond in Thailand after a rope bridge collapsed. The women, all participants in the Miss Thailand competition, were posing at a cafe in Chiang Mai to take pictures when the suspension bridge snapped. Three contestants were injured with one suffering cuts and bruises to the forehead and two having minor scrapes. All the women were taken to a hospital for a checkup but have since been discharged.

The group was preparing for a promotional event when they were asked to pose on the bridge, according to Worapot Chatkanjana, the owner of the cafe. The women, all wearing casual outfits, sun hats and face shields, smiled and waved to the cameras before the structure gave way.

While pageants are known to promote the notion that beauty lies in an inner essence, they also often encourage children to emulate adult women by using makeup and costumes to create features like long eyelashes, full lips, blushed cheeks and a wide-eye brow, as well as engage in provocative dance steps, poses and facial expressions. The pageant world can be a tough place for the girls, who are sometimes subjected to humiliating snark and mean-spirited insults. The recent controversies involving Donald Trump’s ugly rants, Steve Harvey mistakenly crowning the wrong winner and Miss Puerto Rico Destiny Velez’s anti-Muslim tweets are a testament to the perils of attempting to win a title that requires you to show a lot of skin.