TIARAS AND TANTRUMS

Apparently Matapa Maila is very unhappy about her second place in the recently concluded Miss SA pageant and feels that the judging system and process needs to be changed. Here is an excerpt from the report that appeared in the Times Live:

Matapa Maila from Johannesburg struggled to contain her disappointment as she was announced first princess in the Miss South Africa pageant for the second time. Viewers of Sunday night's pageant would have noticed the barely concealed dissatisfaction on Maila's face as she was beaten to the title by Nicole Flint, 21, from Pretoria. Maila, 24, reached the Miss SA finals for the third time and was crowned first princess twice, first in 2005.

Now the lead logistics adviser for Sasol says she will never enter the pageant again. "I don't want to sound arrogant but I really thought I had it this time. I gave it my whole heart and the results really took me aback," Maila said. "I was shocked, I know I shone throughout the night. I don't think I even needed to prove myself."

Maila also told The Times that she was "hurting and bruised" after her loss but refuses to be a "sour loser". "I am not a robot, I have feelings, and I must say it hurts and it doesn't make sense to me why I didn't win," she said. "But Nicole is there now, and that is maybe what God's plan was."

My response to this is:

* Matapa's highest previous placement was third in 2005, and not second as has been reported.

* At 24, and given that contestants may no longer appear in consecutive finals, she will be too old to enter again in 2011 whether she wants to or not.

* I always figured Matapa to be a pretty, mature and sweet contestant, and am disappointed with her immature public display of disappointment (I heard from someone at the pageant that the disappointment was nothing less than a 10 on the Richter Scale "vloer moer").

* I'm almost certain that, had she won, she would have applauded the system and praised the merits of the judging process.

* Although the perception is that the current way of judging the pageant is new, variations on the current theme have been employed since the very first "live" pageant in 1972.

* Pre-judging has always accounted for at least 70% of the final score.

* The winner is, short of a major catastrophe, always the contestant in the lead after pre-judging.

* The celebrity judges can, at best, only shuffle the runner-up positions given the weight of their contribution to the score.

* Unlike Idols or SA's Got Talent, the Miss SA contest is a job interview process and not a popularity contest.

* Whilst I am in favour of some sort of public involvement in the judging process, the entire system would have to be over-hauled to accommodate a public vote.

* Socio-economic and socio-political divides preclude a public vote, and block-voting based on factors other than merit would result in undeserving, but popular contestants winning the title.

My advise to Matapa is to dust herself off, get back on the horse and move on with life. It's only a beauty pageant after all and she already has a major title to her credit.