In 1931, the two papers, the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun and the Samcheolly, reported that there had been two beauty contests held in Korea under the Japanese colonial rule to select Miss Joseon and Samcheollyilsaik, both of whom were to represent the beauty of Joseon. The titles of the beautiful women and the method of selecting them differed, but many of today’s historians regard it as historically significant that two events were held in Joseon and in the same period.
The history of beauty contests is short and their popularity is widely regarded as a phenomenon of the modern world. The beauty contest of the modern world largely reflects significant changes in the viewpoints and aesthetic sensibility of human beings with respect to the age-long practice of worshipping the beauty of the female body. The modern concept of beauty contests was introduced to Korea through Japan, which had been more active in adopting the cultural practices of the West. The news of beauty contests in the West, and in the United States in particular, gradually spread new ideas and discourses on the beauty of the female body among the Korean population.
The aesthetic sensibility of Korean people in the modern period is marked by a division in the traditional monistic view and a new perception of the aesthetic value and importance of the female body. The beauty contest was an event in which individual and social desires regarding the beauty of the human body were publically expressed and assessed, and where modern standards of beauty were formed and propagated, ultimately leading to efforts to control and regulate women’s bodies. The standards of female beauty established through such events were further evolved and spread to the general public via the mass media.
A beauty contest was essentially a commercial event that developed amid the growing influence of the mass media and public interest in the beauty of the human figure, and which continued to grow through the close interrelationship between the media and the public. Beauty contests and the mass media in early 20th-century Korea educated and encouraged the general public to learn more about, and desire, the beauty of the female body. The beauty contests held during this period resulted in complex discourses consisting of a wide variety of modern signs which continue to generate much discussion even today.