Pulling her face to produce slanted eyes in a photo captioned “eating with a Chinese” has cost beauty queen Sarah Dzafce her candidacy as Miss Finland … and embarrassed two right-wing MPs in Finland whose bid at solidarity with Dzafce backfired, too.
Finland’s delegate to the Miss Universe pageant held in Thailand claimed that her gesture was a reaction to a headache during dinner. According to Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, she said a friend added the offensive caption to the 11 December post without her consent.
The BBC reports that the photo of 22-year-old Dzafce pulling the corners of her eyes went viral, with the post drawing a backlash in Japan, South Korea and China.
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo entered the debate on Monday, saying that making such gestures was “thoughtless and stupid” and that the controversy that ensued was “damaging” to the country.
Dzafce apologised for the photo, but drew further criticism from some who said the apology was “insincere” given it was written in Finnish.
According to the BBC, two right-wing MPs in Finland, Juho Eerola and Kaisa Garedew, posted photos of themselves mimicking Dzafce’s gesture to show their support for the beauty queen – but that their posts were taken down after a backlash. Eerola apologised, though said he felt Dzafce was given “disproportionately harsh punishment”.
Prime Minister Orpo condemned the MPs’ actions as “childish”.
[Image: Screengrab https://yle.fi/a/74-20199196]