Phwoar, look at the personality on that one

The 2FM entrant for Miss Ireland was recently crowned by the station. As well as a sash, she was bestowed with the title of Miss Personality. Allow that a moment to sink in. Do your best to dispel comparisons to Father Ted's Lovely Girls competition and images of the lovely girls wending their way through traffic cones like so many decorative collies to Ted's sporadic narrative: "Of course, they all have lovely bottoms."

As part of the 2FM deal, Laura McCormack, the newly crowned Miss Personality, doesn’t need to compete in the Miss Ireland semi-final on Friday. She has a one-way ticket to the final on July 19th, where she will display her personality for the delectation of the judges in a bid to be the first beauty-pageant contestant to place primacy on character over looks. Or something. She’ll do this while competing in both the swimwear and beach categories.

It should be noted that contestants may choose what they wear in the beach category, so they are welcome to cover up. But figuring out whether a bikini or a burkini is better garb to display one’s inner worth? That represents a significant challenge to the intellect.

It’s all a bit embarrassing. Similar to overhearing Granny mutter something racist over Sunday lunch: we’d all rather pretend it isn’t happening and binge-eat roast potatoes while waiting for the horror to end.

However, this shambolic competition raises questions. More than ever, the hypocrisy of entering a Miss Personality seems to highlight the extent to which beauty pageants are an exercise in barrel-scrapery.

Should we ban them? Absolutely not. Anyone who wishes to put themselves forward to be evaluated in any capacity has the right to do so. Certainly, it’s a little distasteful, but then so is a socks-and- sandals combination. Provided only adults with the ability to give their informed consent are taking part, there’s no particular scandal worth getting all a-dither about.

That Ryan Tubridy’s 2FM morning show was the chosen platform for selecting the winner might set some female listeners on edge.

The Miss Personality contest was itself an embarrassment. The idea of selecting someone based on her personality to enter Ireland’s “premium beauty with a purpose pageant” is an attempt to jam a square peg rather viciously through a triangular space.

That this icon of effervescent personality must meet the basic criteria for the Miss Ireland contest places rather extreme limits on her. Contestants must be between the ages of 17 and 24, must never have been married and must not have children. Frankly, these sound like the criteria for a mail-order bride.

The importance of wolf-whistling

In addition, Tubridy, although something of a national treasure, seems a specious choice of spokesman for women to whom looks are secondary. Th

at his listenership is largely female has not deterred him from famously expressing distaste at breastfeeding in public, declaring "there isn't enough wolf-whistling going on", or referring to actress Gillian Anderson as "more attractive now" as she "used to be a little bit of a chubster. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Tubridy frequently manages to make reference to female appearance in general and his preferences in particular, often during slots in no way relevant to that subject.

This proclivity (heels are, apparently, a favourite choice; wedge heels are to be avoided) is discomfiting and makes him a jarring choice to oversee, and be the voice of, a competition that states “it doesn’t matter what you look like”.

Clearly, what you look like matters an awful lot. Luckily, 2FM’s Miss Personality happens to be conventionally attractive. If she weren’t, the likelihood of her winning Miss Ireland would be nonexistent. Why? Because it is a beauty pageant.

A woman may have a high level of education, intelligence or personal achievement. However, the moment she puts on a bathing suit and consents to be judged solely on how good a panel of judges think she looks in it, only her appearance matters. Her degrees won’t give her a bigger or smaller posterior, and her interesting character will not make her less of an object to those observers.