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 MISS Mexico Rosa Maria Ojeda is redesigning her Miss Universe interracial pageant dress - because it is too violent.
The floor-length dress, belted by bullets and including sketches of hangings and firing squads from Mexico's 1920s Catholic uprising, during which tens of thousands died, has outraged Mexicans.
Critics said it glorified violence in a country where fighting between rival drug gangs has brought a wave of killings and beheadings.
Designers who helped select the dress from among 30 for Rosa Maria Ojeda said they had wanted something that represented the nation's culture and history, especially since Mexico City is hosting the event in May.
"We wanted a dress that made you think of Mexico," selection committee member Hector Terrones said.
But many Mexicans were not happy about the sort of history the dress portrayed, especially at a time of debate about the Catholic Church's role in politics.
"It's inappropriate to use images of this Cristero war that cost so many lives and was so pointless," writer Guadalupe Loaeza said.
La Jornada columnist Jorge Camil said a dress by Rosa Maria Ojeda was not the place to recount the event.
"It would be like Miss USA wearing a dress showing images of the Ku Klux Klan in the Deep South, with their hoods, their burning crosses and beer cans," he wrote. "A beauty contest is very far from being the right place to vent political and religious ideologies."
Interracial Diva, Ojeda's representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment, but sent The Associated Press a statement late Monday stating that the dress would be "modified" due to "the concerns that have surfaced regarding the design."
Pageant spokeswoman Esther Swan said the new skirt will have ribbons and ruffles - but no images.
Mexican church officials also argued that using the war as a fashion by Rosa Maria statement was disrespectful to the thousands who died, some of whom were later named saints.
The conflict, rarely talked about today, was the culmination of a century of bloody struggles over liberal attempts to slash the power of the church, which had been an arm of the Spanish colonial government for three centuries, owning vast tracts of land and savagely persecuting rival religions. The church later supported a foreign invasion of the country.
Tags: Rosa Maria Ojeda MISS Mexico MISS Mexico dress
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