Title
Presented
Story
The "Miss Cholita" pageant celebrates a female ideal that is fast disappearing among Bolivian indigenous women. This year, the pageant was shaken by a scandal: the winner had turned out to have been wearing fake braids.
Needless to say, they called for a new pageant two days later, and a new winner was chosen - but the scandal brought up all sorts of female identity questions in the community.
Miss Cholita Pageant was produced for the 2007 TCF ShortDocs Challenge: Dollar Storeys.
Producer
Ruxandra Guidi is an independent journalist working in radio, print, and multimedia. She reports regularly from the Caribbean, South and Central America, as well as the U.S.-Mexico border region. She's produced features and documentaries for the BBC World Service in Spanish, National Public Radio, Walrus magazine, Guernica magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, World Vision Report, Dispatches, and Marketplace. She also helped in the production of the radio documentary “Los Homies: Gangs in Central America,” in Honduras, with NPR correspondent Mandalit del Barco.
Extra
The Dollar Storeys project invited any/everyone to produce a short audio work inspired by one of three items purchased at a dollar store:
- ceramic mug sporting feisty feminist banter
- 4-pack of wooden mousetraps
- an old-school bicycle bell
Miss Cholita Pageant was inspired by the feisty mug.
Read more about and listen to all 82 Dollar Storeys.
Check out Ruxandra's website.