It’s one of the most revered beauty pageants in the world. Miss Venezuela – the precursor to Miss Universe – is watched in its home country by over 50 million people. The competition has produced seven more Miss Universes than any other country and is presided over by Osmel Sousa, a formidable man with a face like a waxwork. Under his direction, hoards of ‘Misses’ have raised money to get expensive plastic surgeries that will help give them the chance to appear in the coveted final.
Messed up? Yes. But, in one of the most violent countries in the world, the ‘Miss’ pageant opens doors to money and fame that girls from the poorer barrios in Caracas would never have been able to dream of.
Bille JD Porter visited Venezuela during the pageant for the first of three documentaries she’s made about South America. We caught up with her to ask about everything from the torturous contraption sewn on to girls’ tongues to stop them eating solids to the reason why a country as poor as Venezuela is the biggest consumer of beauty products in the world.
The Debrief: What’s the deal with the pageant? Why’s it so big?
Billie JD Porter: It's weird. No one in Britain really gives a shit about beauty queens. They’ve come under so much criticism here – there’s been so many protests and your average person doesn’t even know who Miss England is. Over there, though, it’s all consuming. The winners there appear on Coke cans, they’re everywhere, it’s like X Factor times a million.
DB: The people of Venezuela seem obsessed with beauty – what’s the deal?
BP: For a place that has so many safety and security issues, a place with so much violence, beauty and self-modification is something feasible that the girls can actually take control over. Most of them can’t even walk around and feel safe but they can decide they want to have a certain style. They’re the number one consumers of beauty globally, which is mad when you think about how much of the country is living below the poverty line.
DB: So there’s a really odd guy that’s in charge of the competition who makes all the girls get plastic surgery – who the hell is he?
BP: Osmel Sousa. Loads of people think he’s a bit of a monster. I think that he sees what he does as kind of an art form. He really doesn’t give a shit whether or not it instills insecurities into young women. Every ‘Miss’ he’s worked with has gone on to win loads of pageants. People can say what he’s doing is wrong, but it’s not him giving the crown of Miss Universe, it’s judges all over the world, so they must like what he does.
DB: Do the guys get as much plastic surgery as the girls?
BP: Yeah! We met this plastic surgeon and like half of his back catalogue was men. Everything from pec implants to hair transplants and Botox to tanning. They’re all very groomed – the opposite of my type.
DB: One girl had a pretty awful diet technique…
BP: Oh my god. It was just like a method of torture. She had this thing sewn to the end of her tongue and if any food got stuck in there it would be too painful so she could only drink liquids. They go to really extreme lengths but then every other person I’m speaking to now is on some sort of juice cleanse. It’s just like doing that but having a slap on the wrist if you fuck up.
DB: What about their exercise routine?
BP: I did a session at gym with their trainer and I thought: 'I’ve been quite healthy on this trip; I haven’t been out boozing every night. I bet I can do it for a bit?' It was just insane – I thought was going to vomit. The girls are running on no sleep; they rehearse until well into the night for weeks and weeks before the final and they just sort of go into autopilot. I don’t know how they manage to plaster on those grins and trot around.
DB: Is this whole thing just engineered so men can look at pretty women?
BP: They’re not doing it because they think their boyfriend will like them better. Actually, a lot of men were saying they prefer a natural woman. It's because loads of the people who present the E! News in South America are ex-misses – as are most of the people on TV. The involvement in the competition is basically a big tool for social mobility.
DB: There’s young girls, walking around in bikinis and surrounded by men – was there really nothing dodgy going on?
BP did wonder when we went to one of the regional heats and some of the girls had ‘sponsors,’ which are guys who had a clothing line or a hair salon so they put the girls up. I was listening around trying to hear if something sinister was going on, but for the most part there wasn’t. In South America, their way of life is much more family orientated than ours, most of the men who were working on the show were married with kids and didn’t seem to see the girls as anything other than colleagues.
DB: Do you reckon you could ever be a 'Miss'
BP: I’m not a hugely well-turned-out girl, but I came away thinking that I dressed too scruffily. It was odd because we went back there three times so spent quite a long time over there and, by the end of it, I was carrying make-up and a hairbrush with me and I was like: 'What, who am I? I’m morphing into them.'
*Extreme Beauty Queens: Secrets Of South America is on BBC3 tonight at 9PM *
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.