The documentary of the week: Rebel beauties | Uninhibited beauties

Carla Beauvais sets off to discover unusual beauty contests, from Japan to Brazil, via Zimbabwe, in a new documentary series presented from Friday January 10, on TV5.

It’s called Rebel beautiesbut forget your usual beauty criteria here. Forget your criteria altogether. On the menu: Down syndrome, albinism, elderly people, trans women, overweight, incarcerated, etc. In fact, and this is obvious from the very first minutes of viewing (and we have watched the first two episodes), it will be less about beauty than about taking power, destigmatization, in short, rebellion, in this series of ten episodes, produced by Casadel and directed by Alexis B. Martin. How then? Through meetings and exchanges, conducted very humanely by the facilitator, who is here in her very first experience in animation, it should be noted.

“The beauty contest is a pretext,” immediately confirms Carla Beauvais, who we know best as a social entrepreneur and co-founder of the Dynasty Foundation, who is strangely never formally presented in the series. . We met her at the end of December to talk about the project, which still stretched over two years, and we quickly understand why, seeing the parade of countries visited.

“I was approached during the pandemic and at first I thought it was a joke! “, she said, laughing. That doesn’t stop her from being won over very quickly. “The different beauty contests, I couldn’t miss that! »

This is because the host arrives at an age where, precisely, the subject particularly speaks to her. “I am 46 years old, I see my body changing, and I ask myself a lot of questions about old age and acceptance. Maybe this is a way for me to make peace with all these transformations. It’s okay to be different! »

She doesn’t hide it: this shoot literally “transformed” her. More than ever, there is room for listening, nuance and welcoming difference. “I am much more into listening and exchanging to understand certain realities. And in the social universe we currently live in, where everything is polarized, it feels good to listen and understand what people are experiencing,” she argues.

Competitions differently

This is actually what she does in each episode, where we literally follow her to the ends of the earth, going to meet families, volunteers and organizers of selected competitions. Their long exchanges, although very clumsily dubbed – and this is a rare although omnipresent downside to this otherwise very relevant series, in our humble opinion – are hilariously telling. You have to hear the Japanese mothers, in the first episode, talk about the stigma surrounding the situation of their child, born with Down syndrome, in particular. Or participants born with albinism (second episode) reveal the intimidation and stigma they have suffered throughout their lives.

Result: everywhere, whether with trans women in Thailand, burlesque dancers in Las Vegas or older women on Reunion Island: “Having a person in front of you breaks down barriers, she congratulates herself. And it’s like that in all the episodes. »

About these women from Reunion Island, precisely: “They were uninhibited, comfortable with their bodies, comfortable with their sexuality. It was completely transformative. We went beyond the physical to talk about retirement, but also death, argues Carla Beauvais. Competitions are always an excuse to get to the bottom of things. »

Certainly. So why address this profound question of difference through beauty contests, tinged with a certain superficiality? The question arises. “Because pageants are a platform where people can express a side of themselves. I think this platform empowers people, the host answers. If you have lived with albinism your whole life, your self-confidence may have been tested. Being able to have confidence, facing the eyes of others, feeling beautiful, I think it’s restorative, and it can perhaps heal certain wounds. » Just see the smiles on the faces of the participants (and their parents) who proudly parade at the end of each episode to get a little idea.

The series will be broadcast on TV5 on Fridays at 8 p.m., starting January 10. It will also be offered on TV5Unis.

Visit the show page