Beauty pageants are wildly popular in the U.S. Virgin Islands,
outnumbering any other single performance event and capturing the
attention of the local people from toddlers to seniors. Local
beauty contests provide women opportunities to demonstrate talent,
style, the values of black womanhood, and the territory's social
mores.
"Queen of the Virgins: Pageantry and Black Womanhood in the
Caribbean" is a comprehensive look at the centuries-old tradition
of these expressions in the Virgin Islands. M. Cynthia Oliver maps
the trajectory of pageantry from its colonial precursors at tea
meetings, dance dramas, and street festival parades to its current
incarnation as the beauty pageant or "queen show." For the author,
pageantry becomes a lens through which to view the region's
understanding of gender, race, sexuality, class, and colonial
power.
Focusing on the queen show, Oliver reveals its twin roots in
slave celebrations that parodied white colonial behavior and
created creole royal rituals and celebrations heavily influenced by
Africanist aesthetics. Using the U.S. Virgin Islands as an
intriguing case study, Oliver shows how the pageant continues to
reflect, reinforce, and challenge Caribbean cultural values
concerning femininity. "Queen of the Virgins" examines the journey
of the black woman from degraded body to vaunted queen and how this
progression is marked by social unrest, growing middle-class
sensibilities, and contemporary sexual and gender politics.
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