It was in 2015 that Donald Trump severed his long financial attachment to the Miss Universe pageant. This was miserable on two counts.

First, we remember that sale of the venture was provoked by Trump’s initial pre-presidential shit-post. Following his gibberish about Mexico, a nation he suggested was home to a disproportionate population of “rapists” and “drug dealers”, Mexico boycotted the pageant, significantly reducing its revenues. Ergo, we learned that Trump was seduced by the thought of becoming US history’s most openly racist President more than even (a) the opportunity to shout lewd things at dozens of gorgeous young women or (b) profit.

Second, Trump is a person with no apparent faculty for warmly mocking wit. This absence is necessary for the conservation of truly camp institutions, such as Miss Universe long had been. True camp—or “unintentional camp” per Sontag—can only be produced by those rare individuals, like Trump, who believe their taste to be the taste of all.

Eurovision, by contrast, has not been truly camp for years. Every contestant now winks down the lens and we’re all in on the gold lamé gag together. Eurovision is a celebration of “bad” taste that now no longer meaningfully exists. But, Miss Universe was a peculiarly camp thing, frozen for nearly twenty years in time by Trump’s memory of a taste so dazzling, it made the Spearmint Rhino appear as a model of modernist Danish decor.

I would watch Miss Universe every year and think, “innocence is possible”.

I know, of course, that it is wrong to mourn the loss from any leadership role of Trump, a man, it is alleged, wont to call his beauty queens pigs when they ate their way beyond size zero. But, dammit, I enjoyed a spectacle preserved by the naivete of a single US fuckwit. I would watch it every year and think, “innocence is possible”. Even if it was the cruel and brutal innocence of a lesser billionaire whose idea of aesthetic restraint necessarily involves glitter.

I did not view much of the 2016 pageant out of fear that Team Irony had claimed it as a “bad” taste relic, along with Eurovision. Perhaps I should have stayed with it, as Miss Universe 2017, broadcast locally this past Tuesday afternoon on Seven, retains some of its brutal innocence.

The dresses, hair and feigned enthusiasm of contestants remain as huge are the swimsuits are small. I can happily report that pop singers whose Best Before date has long since expired still torture us between pageant competitions. (To wit: Fergie.) And the short biographical voice-overs that describe contestants, named for their country always minus the pageant honorific “Miss”, are still agreeably ridiculous. I know of no other show on earth where I might hear a sentence like, “Japan has studied flower arranging. She is a dental technician who once performed an autopsy on a human being.” (I swear. A sentence very close to this one was uttered.)

But, the signs that Miss Universe will soon “change with the times” are appearing. From both a pro-camp and a feminist standpoint, this is very disappointing. Lovers of camp—already crushed that Carson of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is ruining their fun with his derisive commentary— will likely have their swimsuit competition denied us in time, and no longer shall we learn that Czech Republic yearns to teach girls to love their bodies no matter their shape, even as she displays 95% of her own ideal geometry. Then, we feminists will no longer be able to easily identify those who oppose us.

Women need “good examples”. Women need “leadership”. Women need “empowerment”. How this rot, which we can hear at the UN as well, differs from the prescriptions my gender has heard in the past is beyond me.

Miss Universe, you see, has now joined many of the world’s liberal institutions in its embrace of feminism. There is so little that separates the rhetoric heard at your Powerful Women in media, government, business, NGO etc. conference and that uttered by South Africa (the eventual winner, Colombia was robbed). It’s all “role models” and “sexual harassment” and even, thanks to USA, who sent a cheerio to Marie Curie, “women in STEM!”

Fuck this, frankly. You can bang on all you want about how there “are many feminisms”, but there is, surely, one basic rule: feminism must not serve those who oppose it. Although Miss Universe is not so inimical to the women (and men) of the world as, say, the financial sector—and plenty of popular feminists now give their endorsement to banks and insurance companies—we can declare no competition requiring its contestants to be female, unmarried, childless and no older than 28 legitimately feminist.

Heck. Even if Miss Universe became “inclusive” and permitted entry by the occasional lass with a wonky leg or an A-cup to talk about the importance of “compassion” and of “healing the world”, this entire Leadership for Women crud is something with which feminism must have no truck.

Blah. Blah. Blah. Women need “good examples”. Women need “leadership”. Women need “empowerment”. How this rot, which we can hear at the UN as well as Miss Universe, differs from the prescriptions my gender has heard in the past is beyond me. Women, like all people, have less need of good examples than they have of good lives. Women, like all people, are generally in need of far less leadership. As for “empowerment”. Well, if that means clean water, secure housing and healthcare, I’m all for it. It generally doesn’t, though. It generally means something very much like the “confidence” required of Miss Universe competitors.

My own confidence may be unwarranted, and is certainly disagreeable to some. Forget that I happen to be both poor “role-model” and loudmouth, and think: where did her “confidence” come from. Not a fucking frock fest, and not from a Women in Leadership fucking summit. It came from healthcare, clean water, education and secure housing. All resources needed for “empowerment” by all our women and men.

In sum, Miss Universe reminded me to be angry at liberal feminism, and angry at the cynicism of a global culture that demands a homogenous “good taste”. Other than that, it was delightful.