I happened to catch some of the commentators’ complaints that Miss Michigan Rima Fakih, the winner of 2010 Miss USA, is from a Muslim background. With that also came revelations of pictures of her from a pole-dancing competition and a video production. However, those were less racy than her official lingerie shots taken under the auspices of the Miss USA Pageant. In observing that Rima Fakih is a Lebanese-American immigrant whose family observes both Muslim and Christian holidays, several commentators complained that Muslims seem to be getting some sort of advantage in such contests.
Having seen only the pictures shown on broadcast TV and in the Dallas Morning News, I can’t (and won’t) attempt any kind of comprehensive analysis of any of the Miss USA contestants. And I have nothing at all to say about any advantage for Muslim or Christian or any other kind of young woman in these contests. However, the pictures that were in the public media would seem to suggest that Miss USA is not an observant Muslim or at least not observing Muslim standards of modesty. I do not know her and am in no position to make any judgments about her character, but she would need much more than a hijab for the necessary cover up. I would not be surprised if faithful Muslims in Lebanon (and elsewhere) expressed embarrassment rather than pride, fearing she has been corrupted by the Christian west.
I know that over the years a number of Miss USA contestants have used that platform to make their own Christian witness. Last year’s Miss California, Carrie Prejean, made such a statement which seemed oddly ironic when her own racy pictures were released. Again, I am in no position to judge her or any of them or their motives. I’m not even interested in critiquing beauty pageants. And I am certainly not trying to promote prudish or dowdy fashion for women of any age or enforce some kind of male dominance.
My question goes in a different direction. How does the way we present ourselves in public (from dress to pose to language) communicate who we are or aspire to be as people? In Luke 6:45 Jesus said, “It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Try as I might to manage myself to give a good impression, the façade will slip and my public persona will betray the overflow of my heart. The solution is not better masks or greater skill at keeping them in place but feeding the heart on better things so that neither I nor anyone else feels embarrassed when my heart overflows. Or as the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:8, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
While faithful Christians and Muslims have many things about which to disagree, including how modesty should be practiced, it seems to me in the public arena we can be allies in encouraging the principle of winsome modesty for men as well as women.
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