My sister had Saved by the Bell reruns on this morning before she left for school. Did any of you watch that show growing up? It was a giant, stinky ball of television cheese, of course, but I know the truth about you all out there-- you watched it as diligently as I did. After all, who can forget the episode where Jessi takes the caffeine pills to maintain her perfectionist life? The 80s pop hit "I'm So Excited" will never be the same for me. Or the diner where they all went after school? Screech's unrequited love for Lisa?

Well, today was the beauty pageant episode. I didn't watch all of it before my sister flipped channels to the country station, but the gist of the plotline was this: Jessi, ever the feminist (although Elizabeth Berkeley went on to star in Striptease, I believe), was leading a protest in the halls over the school beauty pageant. Meanwhile, Zach wanted to enter Screech in the pageant, which Mr. Belding forbade. Yet after Jessi agreed to stop protesting if a man entered the pageant, Belding relented and let Screech in.

Watching this all transpire, I wondered if Jessi had missed the point about the whole protest. Most people who protest beauty pageants are angry about the objectification of women. But does allowing men to be objectified make it any better? Will having a beauty pageant where men and women equally trounce around half naked really bring about equality of the sexes?

It is interesting today to watch the trajectory of modern beauty pageants. Today's Miss Americas usually have a social platform that they travel on. Now the swimsuit competition is a "fitness competition," and an interview accompanies the evening gown competition. Pageants like Miss America and Miss USA are also today's largest donors of college scholarships to young women. This may explain why today's contestants are very intelligent women, studying to be things like doctors and lawyers.

Let's get real, though. I will confess that when I've watched Miss America in the past, it wasn't the content of the interviews that I was thinking about. I, and the people I watched the competition with, basically ranked candidates on their physical attractiveness. Little girls don't really dream of being Miss America because of what she said about world peace.

Back to Jessi and the gang-- I don't think you'll ever see a men's pageant gain that kind of mainstream popularity either, except maybe as some sort of joke. Nor would I want it to, to be honest. Objectifying people, judging them only on what they give us rather than on who God has created them to be, is selfish and destructive. Beauty pageants say a lot about gender stereotypes and what we value women for in our society. For me, "equality" doesn't mean valuing men for the same shallow reasons.

I don't mean to pick on Miss America or Miss USA, or to bash the women who participate in their pageants (who can blame them, when we're all trying to pay for college somehow?). It is just one very small symptom in a much larger problem. And bringing Screech into the beauty pageant isn't going to make it better.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." --Psalm 139:13-14

Kelsey