Brazil is known internationally for its beautiful scenery.
This includes its beautiful women.
The country is home to many of pageant cultures' most coveted crowns, Miss World, Miss International,
Miss Earth and Miss Universe.
But Brazil is also notorious for its prison influx.
With over six hundred thousand prisoners, it has the fourth largest prison
population in the world.
So we traveled to São Paulo
to attend a beauty pageant in the country's largest female maximum security prison complex.
So there's going to be four categories.
The first one is Miss Max or Miss International.
It's because this prison has a lot of foreign women.
And so it's about being beautiful no
matter where you're from in the world.
The second one is Muse of Maturity,
a prize for the — an older inspirational woman in the prison.
Third one is Miss Congeniality.
And the fourth one is really interesting.
Probably the most interesting one of them.
It's the Mr. Congeniality.
It's a new prize.
The first time we have this.
And it's for the openly gay inmates here.
After the rehearsal, we met up with Ana Paula,
who started Mr. Max, an openly gay category that has never been done at any other beauty
pageant before.
Nerves are running high in the green room
as the ladies prepare for the show.
Hair and makeup professionals have been brought in
to help beautify the inmates.
The prison administrators have made sure to hire the best
of the best.
A strange combination of inmates, relatives, local celebrities and leading Brazilian media
companies begin to show up as the emcees take the stage.
Supermodel Ana Hickmann co-hosts
the evening, along with Brazil's most famous TV presenter, Raul Gil.
Mr. Max, the category everyone had been waiting for all day began with a walk off.
Now the jury asks Mr. Max contestants questions about their future.
Tonight felt like real life Cinderella.
Like right immediately after they gave the last
prize, the women transformed back to what they are right now, which is inmates.
I've only known them for these past few days while they were excited and happy and it was, you
know, not that hard to stay positive.
Let's see how they feel tomorrow.
It's really a lot more than just a pageant.
This is a glimpse of a better life.
It's a reason to stay positive in a hard reality.
If you want a society where people can actually have a chance to better themselves, we need to
give them a space to do so.
And I think that this pageant and all its silliness and glitter
is an example of that.