Global beauty standards, global capital

I’ve just figured out that the Miss Universe pageant isn’t coming on until 9p eastern time. That seems quite late. How ever will the children watch?Well, at least that might give me more time to work on my theory of bikini nationalism, or at least to contemplate how global beauty standards might be following shifts in global capital, thus recreating in our relation to sensuality a dissonance not unlike the one growing in the U.S. between sex and desire.Okay [head shake], back to earth. I am thinking of an msNBC article I read last week, on models and pageant contestants from Africa, and how the beauty that garners them international recognition is vastly different from that which would bring them local recognition.And this one, from the NYT Tierney lab blog a few months ago, about Brazilian women seeking a new, thinner beauty, which is different from men’s desires, which are for fuller women. There is also a nice follow-up here.