Line #21 Literature/BeautyQueens


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10	[[quoteright:331:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51wngs8tefl_sl600.jpg]]
11	->''"Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are."''
12	-->--'''Mary Lou Novak'''
13
14	''Beauty Queens'' by Creator/LibbaBray is a story brought to you by [[PeaceAndLoveIncorporated The Corporation]].
15
16	A plane of BeautyContest contestants crash-lands on an uncharted island, where only a dozen women out of 50 survive. Along the way, they meet a bunch of guys pretending to be pirates (on a TV show brought to you by The Corporation), go insane and learn to survive. A {{Satire}} of the media and consumerism.
17	----
18	!!''Beauty Queens'' provides examples of:
19	* AbusiveParents: Tiara's backstory. She says she can't remember the last time she felt full because her parents basically starved her and guilt-tripped her into preforming and preparing for pageants non-stop since she was two weeks old. Even her name "Tiara Destiny" fits into this.
20	%% * ActionGirl: By the end, all of the women. Taylor and Adina especially.
21	* AcmeProducts: The Corporation makes everything from period products to breast surgeries to tv shows. Every product in this world is part of The Corporation somehow.
22	%% * AlphaBitch: Taylor
23	%% * ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Frequent.
24	* AxCrazy:
25	** [[spoiler:Taylor]] becomes this after [[MushroomSamba eating too many berries]]. [[spoiler:Or that's what the girls think. Agent Jones drugged her and made it look like she did it to herself.]]
26	** [=MoMo B. ChaCha=] is his own brand of AxCrazy as well, sentencing people to death at the slightest provocation.
27	%% * BeautyContest: Duh.
28	%% * BigDamnHeroes: The end. Everyone.
29	* BlackAndNerdy: Nicole is very smart and wants to be a doctor. However, unlike most examples of this trope, ''Beauty Queens'' explicitly discusses race.
30	* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Lampshaded by Nicole and Shanti as they begin to drown in quicksand, claiming that of ''course'' the two girls of color will be the ones to die. Subverted in that nobody actually dies.
31	%% * BlandNameProduct: Babez dolls. And more.
32	* BrainlessBeauty: Miss Alabama and Miss Mississippi. However, in Tiara's case, it is discussed -- she knows she's not very smart and so relies on being pretty, even though it makes her feel terrible about herself and she's always terrified that "there would be a test that didn't involve getting an A in pretty" and that she will let people down. That being said, she does have some good ideas, like how to collect water, [[spoiler:and she graduates college with a GPA of 3.75 in the epilogue.]]
33	* BoundAndGagged: Agent Harris is bound with {{duct tape\|ForEverything}} and gagged with [[ImprobableWeapon a maxi pad]].
34	* BoyBand: Boyz Will Be Boyz. JT Woodland [[spoiler:aka Petra]] is the cute one.
35	%% * BreakTheHaughty: Happens to [[spoiler:Adina and Taylor. They recover]].
36	%% * ButchLesbian: Jennifer
37	* ButLiquorIsQuicker: Duff seduces Adina while she's drunk.
38	* ButNotTooBlack: Discussed. Nicole is very dark-skinned and her backstory discusses colourism in detail.
39	* CaligulasHorse: [=MoMo B. ChaCha=] is so paranoid that his adviser is a taxidermied lemur named General Good Times.
40	* CastSpeciation: Tiara and Brittani are both TheDitz and start out basically interchangeable. Tiara then undergoes CharacterDevelopment and, while still stupid, shows her HiddenDepths throughout the story.
41	%% * ChekhovsGun: Confessions of a Pirate Casanova, the defense systems the girls make (Taylor wasn't lying about not needing to make one herself) and more. [[spoiler:Subverted with Harris' bomb.]]
42	%% * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Tiara, Brittani, and to a lesser extent, Mary Lou.
43	%% * ComingOfAgeStory
44	* CommonalityConnection: Shanti and Nicole start out by fighting over who gets to be the TokenMinority, but eventually they bond over it and become best friends.
45	%% * ConsultingMisterPuppet: General Good Times for [=ChaCha=] and [[spoiler:Miss Miss for Taylor]].
46	* CreepyDoll: The Ladybird Hope doll is described as soul-sucking. Tiara also believes that her childhood stuffed dinosaur was alive and evil.
47	* CutHimselfShaving: When asked what happened to the winner and the first runner up for Miss Michigan, Jennifer cracks her knuckles and says they fell. Subverted in that the actual reasons the original contestants couldn't compete are completely innocent.
48	%% * DanceBattler: Sosie, a gymnast, fights like this.
49	* DancePartyEnding: The epilogue has all the character that got off the island having a dance party.
50	%% * DeadpanSnarker: Many characters, particularly Petra, Adina and Jennifer.
51	%% * DesertIsland: Where the girls crash, becoming a thoroughly discussed and lampshaded trope.
52	* DidIJustSayThatOutLoud: Agent Harris tells the girls the Corporation's plot to kill them, then says, "Wait. I just said that out loud, didn't I? Damn."
53	* DivineIntervention: In the beginning of the book, a fundamentalist girl starts singing that [[GodWasMyCopilot Jesus is their copilot]] in hopes that this will occur. Near the end, [[spoiler:Shanti and Nicole are rescued by a wind they surmise must have come from the gods of the island's relocated indigenous people]].
54	* EarnYourHappyEnding: It takes a lot of strife, danger, and borderline mental breakdowns, but the girls finally learn to be themselves.
55	* ElvisImpersonator: [=MoMo B. ChaCha=] dresses up as Elvis to fuel his hypocritical obsession.
56	%% * EnsembleCast
57	* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Some of the background contestants are only referred to by their states. [[spoiler:Near the end, it's revealed that it's because they all have the same first name. And the same middle name.]]
58	%% * EvilInc: The Corporation.
59	%% * FictionalDocument: The Miss Teen Dream Fun Facts Pages and the commercial scripts.
60	* FireForgedFriends: Nicole and Shanti become friends after being [[QuicksandSucks sucked into quicksand]]. All the contestants become friends after living on the island together.
61	* FootnoteFever: There's a lot of snarking going on in the footnotes.
62	%% * {{Foreshadowing}}: The "Fun Facts" pages.
63	%% * FreudianExcuse: Taylor's mother abandoned her on a JourneyToFindOneself.
64	%% * HandsomeLech: [[spoiler:Duff]] [[TheCasanova the Pirate Casanova]] who blogs about his sexual exploits.
65	* HeelFaceDoorSlam: Taylor starts out as irritating and crosses the line with her callous transphobic comments after [[spoiler:Petra's reveal]]. However, when the radio is repaired and she realizes that she's been wrong and her life is falling apart, she becomes more sympathetic, complete with FreudianExcuse… for all of one chapter until she's incapacitated. [[spoiler:She's not dead, but she's been drugged out of her mind to keep her from revealing the Corporation's plan, and the others leave her be.]] Subverted later [[spoiler:when you see that she's still fighting to regain her lucidity and she ends up saving the girls.]]
66	%% * HiddenDepths: Most of the cast.
67	* HurricaneOfPuns: Petra and Sinjin trade Creator/CharlesDickens puns.
68	* ImportantHaircut: Tiara has an emotional breakdown and chops her hair with a machete. Petra fixes it, giving her short spiky, "warrior princess hair."
69	* ImprobableWeapon: They make a catapult out of a shoe. The Corporation uses Lady Stache-Off Hair remover as an explosive.
70	* InformedJudaism: Adina's Judaism comes up all of two times.
71	* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Sosie, who is partially deaf, plays this up for the cameras. In truth, she hates it and just wants to be seen as a girl and not just the token disabled girl.
72	* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler:Taylor, the one most committed to the beauty pageant, is the only one who does not participate.]]
73	%% * JunglePrincess: [[spoiler:By the end, Taylor has abandoned civilization and essentially become this.]]
74	* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler:Agent Jones is taken down when Taylor shoots him with a poison dart, the same kind he used to drug ''her'' for days.]]
75	* MadLove: Gender-flipped, with [=MoMo=] fawning over a disinterested and manipulative Ladybird.
76	%% * TheMenInBlack: The agents of the Corporation.
77	%% * MushroomSamba: Weird, hallucinogenic fruit samba.
78	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Ladybird Hope is clearly based on Sarah Palin and Agent Harris is George Bush. [[invoked]]WordOfGod says that Sinjin is based on Creator/DavidLevithan.
79	* NotWithTheSafetyOnYouWont: Occurs when the girls have to take down Harris. [[spoiler:This is Harris' eventual downfall when he forgets the safety in front of a killer snake.]]
80	* ObfuscatingInsanity: [[spoiler:Taylor's not entirely sane, but she played up her insanity to make the Corporation underestimate her.]]
81	* OohMeAccentsSlipping: In-character example. When Shanti is scared, she loses her fake British Indian accent and starts talking like a ValleyGirl.
82	* OneSteveLimit: Averted. [[spoiler:Miss Ohio, Miss Arkansas, Miss New Mexico and Miss Montana are all named Caitlyn, and their middle name is Asheley, although Ohio has two "e"s in hers.]]
83	%% * OperationBlank: Operation Peacock
84	* ParodyCommercial: Fake advertisements for, among other things, plastic surgery ("Breast in Show. Because, 'You're perfect, just the way you are,' is what your guidance counselor says. And she's an alcoholic"), TV shows ("Captains Bodacious IV: Badder and More Bodaciouser") and Maxi Pad Pets ("Brought to you by the Corporation: In your homes and in your pants.).
85	%% * PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: The entire Corporation, especially the BigBad.
86	%% * ProductPlacement: In-universe, there's a whole TV show based on it.
87	* QuicksandSucks: It gets Nicole and Shanti. {{Lampshade\|Hanging}}d by Nicole: "That's just a desert island trope."
88	* RealWomenDontWearDresses: Adina believes this, dismissing makeovers and beauty as something society constructed to keep women in line. Jennifer and Shanti don't argue otherwise, but also mention that they're having fun with it anyhow and not everything has to be empowering.
89	%% * RescueRomance: Jennifer rescues Sosie from a giant snake.
90	%%* RuleOfSymbolism: Just about everything is symbolic. Seriously.
91	* SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: The root of Mary Lou's issues. She has a high sex drive and enjoys taking the lead, but her mother, first boyfriend, and school all [[SlutShaming slut-shamed]] her for it until she took a purity pledge, causing her to believe that her sexual desires were dirty and monstrous. Her relationship with Tane, who not only allows but actually likes her being dominant, helps her get over it.
92	* SharkPool: Mary Lou and Tane are slowly lowered into a [[PiranhaProblem piranha pit]]. It's {{lampshade\|Hanging}}d, "You really have seen too many [[CaptainErsatz Loch]] [[Franchise/JamesBond Lomond]] movies."
93	* StabTheScorpion: [[spoiler:Taylor levels a gun at Adina, and shoots a {{Mook\|s}} behind her.]]
94	* ThatsNoMoon: The volcano is a secret base for The Corporation.
95	%% * ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: Petra's help banner.
96	%% * TokenBlackFriend: Nicole grew up with this as the only TV representation of anyone remotely like her. It gives her enough identity issues that she has a nightmare during the girls' MushroomSamba moment.
97	* TransTribulations: [[spoiler:Petra is transgender. She takes feminizing hormones and would have gotten the full surgery if she could afford it, and entered the Miss Teen Dream Contest to raise awareness for transgender rights.]]
98	* TokenMinority: Deconstructed with Nicole and Shanti, who are well aware that the Corporation's beauty contest is only interested in ''one'' girl of color and are competing with each other for the title, and have derailed themselves to whoever fits the TokenMinority role the best.
99	* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: The beauty queens come up with a detailed plan for the Miss Teen Dream Pageant, but it fails and they have to improvise.
100	%% * ValleyGirl: Shanti's true personality.
101	* WhatYouAreInTheDark: A CentralTheme as the girls learn to shed their manufactured personalities for the cameras and start being who they really are the longer they stay on the island.
102	%% * WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The ending combines this with a DancePartyEnding.
103	* WholePlotReference: Much like ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' was a giant middle finger to ''Literature/CoralIsland'', this book flips off ''Lord of the Flies'' in return.

Context Literature / BeautyQueens