VietNamNet Bridge - Recently crowning Vietnam’s scandalous bikini model Ngoc Trinh as its winner, Miss Vietnam Continents, a beauty pageant for Vietnamese nationalities across the world held the first time in America this year, has raised strong criticism of its credibility.

Vietnamese model crowned Miss Vietnam International

 

Organized by American-based MC Entertainment, with its director, Pham Minh Chanh, a comedian and head of the organization committee, the pageant attracted 35 contestants, including 3 models from Vietnam.

 

Reportedly held to honor Vietnamese beauties from all continents, the competition somehow showcased most contestants from America who do not have to go through extensive country and regional selections like the established Miss Vietnam World, which crowned Ngo Phuong Lan, a university student highly praised for her intelligence and social activities, in 2007.

 

Unlike other contests, Miss Vietnam Continents held only one round and awarded prizes to more than half of the contestants, with the top positions going to the three models from Vietnam: Ngoc Trinh, Tra Ngoc Hang and Nhu Thao.

 

The triumph of Ngoc Trinh, a bikini and lingerie model controversial for giving outspoken and shallow press interviews, over all others at the competition surprised many observers who argued that, judging from her education background to social activities, Ngoc Trinh did not fit the usual profile of a pageant winner.

 

Although Trinh’s two additional titles of Miss Bikini and Miss Asia hardly raise anyone’s eyebrows for she has the face and the body, her overall victory did raise serious questions of the contest’s winning criteria, the newswire Vietnamnet commented.

 

That the organizers of Miss Vietnam Continents never publicized any of these criteria and the contest’s objectives only adds fuel to the fire.

 

Answering Giao duc Vietnam after the finale, Chanh said the results were based on the contestants’ personalities, friendliness and the judges’ evaluation.

 

“Although she did not feel well and got carsick during the contest, she still tried to get on the same bus with other girls, and later even helped them to practice their catwalk,” explained Chanh of Trinh’s ‘inner beauty’ that won her the crown.

 

Thuy Hanh, operation director of the Vietnam Elite Model Agency which regularly sends Vietnamese beauties to Miss World contest, said Miss Vietnam Continents could hardly qualify as a proper beauty pageant.

 

Pointing to its lack of social objectives and its sloppy organization, Hanh explained that prestigious contests always seek to deliver a social message, such as Miss World exerting effort to help the world’s poor children or Miss Universe joining the fight against HIV/AIDS, while Miss Vietnam Continents has not show any sign of following into their footsteps.

 

Without the “beauty with a purpose” formula, the contest also disappointed many of its insiders and veterans of beauty pageants like Hanh, to whom it appeared no more than part of a larger entertainment show, with a myriad of songs, dances and comedies in addition to the pageant’s sub-contests activities, Nguoi Lao Dong reported.

 

On its website, the program’s poster even promoted the contest in Vietnamese as “the first beauty pageant festival and the live broadcast music, dancing and comedy show at Carpenter Performing Arts Center.”

 

“To me, it is only a variety show, period,” Hanh declared.

 

A proper and qualified beauty pageant, in her view, always puts the contestants and their beauties first, always place them at the forefront of public attention, not music and dancing.

 

Source: Tuoitrenews