This clip from the news satire show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ended a larger 2014 segment on the Miss America Beauty Pageant (here). The segment criticized the unethical practices, sexist ideas, double standards, and unrealistic expectations set by these events. The popularity of beauty pageants shows that many of the 18th and 19th century values surrounding gender roles that Austen criticized, such as the supposed importance of physical beauty to a woman's value as a person, still exist today.
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