PICTURES OF PAST BELIZEANS QUEENS ON DISPLAY

September 18, 2006

The House of Culture continues its picture display of past queens of Belize.  Researcher at the House of Culture, Ritamae Hyde, explains that the display aims to portray much more than beauty pageants at face value. 

Ritamae Hyde

“We wanted to look at the historical context why it was started what is the ideology that began the first pageant in Belize. We recognize this to be part of a movement the Loyal Patriotic Order of the Baymen they started the Queen of the Bay Pageant to present their political ideology. So we look at pageants not from the typical perspective of oh it is just a beauty pageant we are trying to look at it from all angle and for the most part the responses has been favourable. People like the fact that they can come and they can learn about pageants and they could see what this deeper meaning really is, that it is not something frivolous as most people would see it, that it is deeply rooted in meaning. So people would come and say “oh I didn’t know this” and then there are other people who are just excited about what they see, “oh I remember that Rita Lewis won the Queen of the Bay Pageant in 1946” people are excited to see things that they remember that they can identify with but most importantly that they have a different insight into the whole pageantry in Belize. That they could see what the various forms of meaning associated with pageants are rather than they are just on stage to represent idolized feminine, beauty what it represents how does Belize fit into the global aspect of beauty, who defines beauty, whose criteria it is, what are the ideals. What are some of the standards how we eligibility standards and contradiction for example the Queen of the Bay Pageant we know that you could be a born Belizean but if your parents are not of Belizean parentage then you are not eligible to enter the Queen of the Bay Pageant but if you are born in Chicago and your parents are Belizeans then you are eligible to enter, so we look at those contradictions."

The exhibition at the House of Culture goes on until the first week of October.

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