Mr Ugly 2016: a wasted chance?

Bruce Ndlovu
Last year, the world was abuzz with news about Zimbabwea��s Mr Ugly pageant.

Despite the modest preparations and setting for the show, the concept seemed to have grabbed worldwide attention and seemed to have the potential to be a money spinning venture for its organisers.

The pageant seemed to be a stroke of genius and its ingenuity seemed to capture the attention of the world media due to its subversion of what people expect a normal pageant to be. It was a contest as interesting as it was absurd, similar in tone to humorous eating competitions that have spread around the world.

It was inconceivable that a year later, the competition would be struggling to make ends meet as it battles to live up to its own legacy.

Last week Mr Ugly founder David a�?Apamaa�? Machowa, said Lifestyle Centre Furnitures, Devine Assignments, Club Verve, Club Joy, Prime Night Club and Coin Security had committed their support to the pageant, whose finals are now scheduled for November 25 in Harare.

This was of course music to the ears of those that want another view of the theatre of the absurd which is the a�?beautya�? pageant.

However, for all the worldwide attention that the pageant received last year and the proclamations made at that time, one cana��t help but feel that the organisers let their eyes off the ball.

This is perhaps best illustrated by how the pageanta��s organisers dealt with preparations for the Bulawayo leg of the contest.

This yeara��s contest is now going to be a lesser version of what was initially promised. Basking in the glory of last yeara��s showa��s publicity, Machowa had promised to take the show to the countrya��s second largest city, where it had also got the publica��s attentions.

Sure enough, the show had promised preliminaries, with Machowa even making a couple of appearances in the City of Kings.

However, the preliminaries never came to be, and with the national finals already pencilled in, indications are that they will not be held in Bulawayo after all.

a�?The response to the contest in Bulawayo has been positive but we have only managed to lure six contestants so far,a�? said Machowa after the first aborted attempt to hold the pageant in the city. a�?We would love to build up momentum and get more attention to the show and thata��s why we are trying to make early advertisements for the show so we can get more people involved,a�? he said.

However, since then excuse after excuse has followed, with the pageant organisers seemingly reluctant to come out in the open about their financial troubles. Instead, excuses have been invented for the repeated postponements.

What will make the haphazard organisation of this yeara��s contest even more disconcerting is that others have seemingly taken the Mr Ugly contest and ran with it.

South Africa, for example, has already run its own version of the The Mr Ugly pageant after it was held in Mtubatuba, KwaZulu-Natal, at the Bit by Bit nightclub, which is owned by former judge David Ntshangase.

Although the idea belongs to the Zimbabweans, their failure to organise the continental and world versions of the contest means that their counterparts across the Limpopo are in a better position to host the event.

Mr Ugly Africa pageant is pencilled for Johannesburg, South Africa between November and December this year while Mr Ugly World will be in Zimbabwe next year.