Winning a beauty contest meant most as lineage validation, not career advancement
Evidence
Then Edie Massey, the last of the judges, held up her scorecard for me. As she displayed the final 10, she proclaimed in her high-pitched, little girl voice, “I love her best, because she looks just like a baby Divine.” Edie didn’t know that I had always thought of Divine as the mother I wished I’d had. I often gave Divine credit for teaching me everything I knew about beauty. To get that public recognition for my true lineage from Edie was the best part of winning the contest. — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 54
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the theme of beauty pageant victories as identity legitimation for marginalized performers — echoes drag/subculture lineage thinking, parallel to how the reader frames Miss Alternative pageants as counterculture self-recognition.