I know most of you enjoy watching girls parading around in skimpy bikinis, well, beauty queens themselves enjoying watching the same thing. This lucky beauty queen got to feast her eyes on hot bods just a few days after her win in Dick Lee’s Beauty Kings play. This time the tables were turned and it was hunky dory guys in their skimpy little Speedos. To think people say beauty queens bare it all, I think the amount of cloth that male pageant contestants have on their bodies expose them more than female beauty pageant contestants.
Speaking of exposure, if you’ve never been backstage or been through a beauty pageant, Dick Lee’s Beauty Kings reveals to the audience a side of male beauty pageants never seen before. I personally dont know much about male beauty pageants too even though the only two internationally franchised male beauty pageants Manhunt and Mister International were founded in Singapore. But based on real life events, Beauty Kings follows the stories of three leads and their foray into the world of male beauty pageants. It’s an interesting look at the various male characters and the motivations behind joining something supposedly reserved for females.
Having just been through a pageant myself, I can see the similarities between the two pageants. Regardless of gender, it was clear that different individuals join for various reasons. It wasn’t hard for anyone to relate to the different characters and their motivations to partake in the parade of beauty. But keeping in mind that Dick Lee’s Beauty Kings is a stage production, it offered slightly more drama and a lot more comedic relief in the 2 hours you step behind the scenes of glamour and grooming.
Although the script was punctuated with witty dialogue and humour throughout, I would have liked the stories and mystery that surrounded each of the characters to have unfolded more during the play giving better insight to the interesting characters in a beauty contest. Despite that, I’m happy that after writing about what goes on behind the crown, someone is taking the often misunderstood world behind the glamourous beauty pageant and giving it its due time, albeit brief, in the limelight.
Dick Lee’s Beauty Kings play is staged at the Drama Centre and ends 17 July.
