Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 001 - 1970 Miss World Fiasco

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001 - 1970 Miss World Fiasco · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
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Speaker 2: Washington is unique.
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Speaker 1: The opportunity for students is amazing. I wanted to be
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Speaker 1: around that level of excellence. I have a passion for service.
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Speaker 1: Learn more and apply at WASSOM dot Education. That's WAUSM
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Speaker 1: dot Education.
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Speaker 2: Hi, and welcome to the very first episode of Who
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Speaker 2: Did What Now? With me? Your host Katie Charlwood, lover
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Speaker 2: of cheese and reader of books. Oh wow, you're thinking
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Speaker 2: that was very smooth for your very first goal, wasn't it?
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Speaker 2: Because this is the third time I've recorded it, so
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Speaker 2: the first time the recording didn't actually take. The second time,
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Speaker 2: turns out I actually got a major fact wrong because
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Speaker 2: all the articles I was looking at regarding one of
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Speaker 2: the topics completely ignored another part of it. So everything
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Speaker 2: I said, but a certain part of it, was wrong.
1:12
Speaker 2: This is a history podcast, which is not your history class.
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Speaker 2: If you're under the age of eighteen, I would suggest
1:20
Speaker 2: not listening because there's probably gonna be some profanity. Listener
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Speaker 2: discretion is absolutely advised. So I thought, what would be
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Speaker 2: a really good idea for the very first episode?
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Speaker 1: What could I do? There'd be a nice, light.
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Speaker 2: Easy entry in this well, I thought why not talk
1:41
Speaker 2: about the nineteen seventy Miss World pageant. But before we
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Speaker 2: get into that, I should probably tell you a little
1:48
Speaker 2: bit about me. I own a comic book store. I
1:53
Speaker 2: think I'm the only woman in Ireland that currently owns
1:55
Speaker 2: a comic book store. I could be wrong, but I'm
1:59
Speaker 2: most in the middle of a pandemic, so very soon
2:03
Speaker 2: I could be wrong depending on how this goes. Small
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Speaker 2: business owner, but I am also jack of all trades,
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Speaker 2: master of one. Maybe I'm technically a social scientist. I
2:18
Speaker 2: have a degree in social science, so I'm mainly focused
2:22
Speaker 2: on history, sociology, and a little bit of psychology. So
2:28
Speaker 2: that's kind of where I'm my main sort of focus
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Speaker 2: of topics were. And I've come to learn about myself
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Speaker 2: that I am a boring person with an interesting past, and.
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Speaker 1: I love history. I love history.
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Speaker 2: I found we're either taught ancient history and we're usually
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Speaker 2: told it as in fact date date, event, date, event,
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Speaker 2: and there is no real flavor to it. And then
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Speaker 2: even with modern history, which I found is from like
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Speaker 2: eighteen seventy to nineteen seventy, it's a lot of dates,
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Speaker 2: repetition and regurgitation, and it's not fun history is not boring.
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Speaker 2: I mean a lot of it's depressing, but it's not boring.
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Speaker 2: There's really interesting stuff that happened throughout history. And yes,
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Speaker 2: I did create this podcast just so I could talk
3:18
Speaker 2: about stuff I like. It's mainly so I can talk
3:20
Speaker 2: about I think they're technically called grape bricks because I'm
3:23
Speaker 2: gonna talk about greape bricks. Greape bricks are my jam
3:28
Speaker 2: but I've been calling them wine blocks for years, but
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Speaker 2: they are my favorite thing in all of history.
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Speaker 1: It's just human ingenuity at its best.
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Speaker 2: I love it so much, and we will cover it
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Speaker 2: at some point, just not today, because today we're gonna
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Speaker 2: cover the most digestible thing to talk about, a beauty
3:51
Speaker 2: pageant and a feminist uprising and racial equality because those
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Speaker 2: those are not those are not divisive subjects at all.
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Speaker 2: Good choice, Kery, good choice.
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Speaker 1: So I guess we should probably just jump into it now.
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Speaker 1: So here's the thing about beauty pageants.
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Speaker 2: I love beauty pageants. I love them.
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Speaker 1: I love them.
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Speaker 2: I love pageants in general. I think they're really fascinating.
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Speaker 2: I love movies about pageants and TV shows like It's
4:26
Speaker 2: the only reason I watched Insatiable, which was not good
4:29
Speaker 2: I felt like it had key elements which could have
4:34
Speaker 2: been great if utilized correctly, but he was the delivery
4:40
Speaker 2: was bad, just bad. I actually do some pro bono
4:44
Speaker 2: work for a small Irish pageant, which is not a
4:49
Speaker 2: beauty pageant. It's it does get compared to the Lovely
4:54
Speaker 2: Girls competition from Father Ted quite a bit, but it's
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Speaker 2: not that either.
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Speaker 1: It's it's its own thing.
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Speaker 2: I think when something is its own thing, it's very
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Speaker 2: difficult to compare it.
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Speaker 1: To anything else. And we were get annoyed by that.
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Speaker 1: But anyway, so we're talking about.
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Speaker 2: The nineteen seventeen Miss World contest where it was disrupted
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Speaker 2: by feminism. Well, let's go back in time away. So
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Speaker 2: the Miss World contest actually started in nineteen fifty one.
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Speaker 2: It is the longest running beauty pageant in the world,
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Speaker 2: and it's one of the top four Miss Universe, which
5:29
Speaker 2: died a year after Miss Earth, which is it has
5:35
Speaker 2: more environmental concerns, it deals with that, and there's another
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Speaker 2: one whose name I don't remember, and then Miss World.
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Speaker 2: So Miss World has created nineteen fifty one and is
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Speaker 2: part of the Festival of Britain by Eric Morley, who's
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Speaker 2: part of the He runs the Meca Leisure Group, and
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Speaker 2: he did it because he was like, I want to
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Speaker 2: get people into.
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Speaker 1: My dance halls, because that's what he did.
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Speaker 2: In the fifties. We didn't have nightclubs. You had dance
6:02
Speaker 2: halts and that's where you went, and everybody in your
6:04
Speaker 2: had to dance.
6:05
Speaker 1: And I would like that.
6:07
Speaker 2: I would love to have had to learn to dance
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Speaker 2: to go do dancing instead of just like weirdly shimmying
6:15
Speaker 2: from side to side like we did in the two
6:18
Speaker 2: and the late two thousands.
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Speaker 1: Just like what did you do?
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Speaker 2: Oh, I just swayed from side to side to whatever
6:23
Speaker 2: song was playing, did a little bit of herography, just
6:26
Speaker 2: like swinging my hair about. But anyway, it was initially
6:30
Speaker 2: part of it was it was created to promote the
6:33
Speaker 2: bikini because it was there had That's the reason the
6:35
Speaker 2: swimsuit part is actually a major part of it. It
6:38
Speaker 2: took me a long time to figure out why the
6:42
Speaker 2: swimsuit was relevant and to think if I had just
6:46
Speaker 2: looked it up, I wear it now and I'm still
6:51
Speaker 2: not keen on it. I'm not keen on it, but
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Speaker 2: it's fine. So and it was all about promoting swimwear
6:56
Speaker 2: in the bikini, which i'd just been invented or at
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Speaker 2: least had been discovered by white people. So the very
7:04
Speaker 2: first year, you know, the winner was actually crowned in
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Speaker 2: a bikini, which I don't think has happened since, and
7:12
Speaker 2: it caused such a scene at the time that bikinis
7:15
Speaker 2: were actually banned then. So the whole point it was existed.
7:18
Speaker 2: Bikinis within banned for years. So the media dub it
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Speaker 2: Miss World because all these contestants, these beautiful women from
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Speaker 2: all these different countries were involved. And the following year,
7:30
Speaker 2: when he heard Eric Morley heard that Miss Universe was
7:36
Speaker 2: being created, he then registered Miss World and it's been
7:40
Speaker 2: called that ever since. So the Miss World contest is
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Speaker 2: absolutely no stranger to controversy.
7:49
Speaker 1: But the one I want.
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Speaker 2: To talk about is the nineteen seventy Miss World contest.
7:55
Speaker 2: The nineteen seventy Miss World pageant was.
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Speaker 1: A wild ride. The funny thing is about it, even
8:01
Speaker 1: though this event.
8:02
Speaker 2: Was fifty years ago, it just shows you that how
8:07
Speaker 2: much and how little has actually changed since then. And
8:11
Speaker 2: it's a really interesting point in time because it's where
8:14
Speaker 2: all these major events in history were overlapping. So you've
8:19
Speaker 2: got the So it's the era of apartheid in South Africa,
8:22
Speaker 2: and you've got the women's liberation movement not only in
8:26
Speaker 2: the UK but all over the world. And then of
8:28
Speaker 2: course you've got a civil rights movement in the US,
8:33
Speaker 2: and all of these come crashing together in this moment.
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Speaker 2: And what I found really interesting is one of the
8:42
Speaker 2: main points of why why the nineteen seventy Miss World
8:46
Speaker 2: was so important, And it's a point. It's actually a
8:51
Speaker 2: major turning point in history, and it's very rarely mentioned.
8:56
Speaker 2: I didn't even know anything about it until I watched
8:59
Speaker 2: a movie Misbehavior.
9:01
Speaker 1: With Kiaren Knightley. I'm terrible.
9:03
Speaker 2: I cannot watch Bend It like Beckham because every time
9:06
Speaker 2: I watch Bend It like Beckham, I really want to
9:07
Speaker 2: start playing football.
9:08
Speaker 1: It just makes me want to exercise. Every time I watch.
9:11
Speaker 2: That movie, I probably should watch that movie. I'd probably
9:13
Speaker 2: get more done. So from about nineteen fifty nine, the
9:20
Speaker 2: Miss World contest was actually televised and it was probably
9:23
Speaker 2: one of the most watched events on live TV by
9:27
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy. So in nineteen seventy you had twenty million
9:32
Speaker 2: people in the UK watching, and there was like one
9:34
Speaker 2: hundred million worldwide, and population wise, that's a fair amount,
9:39
Speaker 2: and that's watching it live. But right here, right now,
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Speaker 2: November twentieth, nineteen seventy. The reason I remember the debate
9:50
Speaker 2: is because it's my birthday. So, oh my god, I
9:54
Speaker 2: totally forgot Miss Universe. Miss Universe actually Eggs was owned
10:01
Speaker 2: by Donald Trump, which I vaguely remember reading about before.
10:06
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's just anyway.
10:12
Speaker 2: Miss World was controversial from the get go. I mean
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Speaker 2: before the contest even started. There was a huge uproar
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Speaker 2: because for the first time, South Africa had sent two contestants, one.
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Speaker 1: Black, one white.
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Speaker 2: The organizers were effectively shamed into sending Pearl Johnson, a
10:32
Speaker 2: black women women of color at the last minute because
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Speaker 2: South Africa had already provided a white contestant, Jillian Jessop.
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Speaker 1: So South Africa had.
10:42
Speaker 2: Consistently sent white contestants the entire time, and so Jillian
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Speaker 2: Jessup was Miss South Africa and Peeril Pearl Johnson was
10:54
Speaker 2: Miss Africa South.
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Speaker 1: So Miss South Africa and in.
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Speaker 2: Miss Africa South actually became really good friends after this,
11:03
Speaker 2: but it was still a big controversy at the time. Okay,
11:07
Speaker 2: apartheid for those who don't know, apartheid was an official
11:11
Speaker 2: policy by the South African government from and it ran
11:15
Speaker 2: from nineteen forty eight to nineteen ninety four, and it
11:20
Speaker 2: was a policy of racial segregation in white supremacy. So
11:25
Speaker 2: most people have heldly heard about Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela
11:28
Speaker 2: was a political activist. The South African government would call
11:31
Speaker 2: him a terrorist at the time, and he was imprisoned
11:34
Speaker 2: and Nelson Mandela went on to become the very first
11:36
Speaker 2: black president of South Africa. I learned who Nelson Mandela
11:41
Speaker 2: was because he met with the Spice Girls. The women's
11:45
Speaker 2: liberation movement was sort of gaining speed all over the world.
11:51
Speaker 2: It had the BBC, as you know, the BBC, the BBC,
11:55
Speaker 2: the British Broadcasting Company whatever.
11:58
Speaker 1: So the BBC van are.
12:00
Speaker 2: All outside and ABBC van gets bombed. Nobody's injured, nobody's
12:06
Speaker 2: nobody's dead, nobody's hurt. It was basically the Women's Love
12:11
Speaker 2: movement trying to stop the televising of the event. They
12:16
Speaker 2: had an idea that something was going to happen, the
12:18
Speaker 2: contestants didn't. Contestants were completely oblivious. It was very much
12:24
Speaker 2: hidden from them. The Miss Sweden that year she even
12:29
Speaker 2: said that no one had any idea nineteen seventy, women
12:33
Speaker 2: were still expected to be the homemaker.
12:36
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't too long before.
12:38
Speaker 2: That that women got the right to vote. Because remember
12:43
Speaker 2: when women originally got the right to vote, it was
12:45
Speaker 2: some women.
12:45
Speaker 1: And you had to be rich, you had.
12:47
Speaker 2: To be married, you had to like own land.
12:50
Speaker 1: You would be a woman, you'd be married.
12:53
Speaker 2: You know, rich white women. Rich white women were able
12:55
Speaker 2: to vote. That was the That was the initial initial step.
13:00
Speaker 2: And then you needed your husband's permission to open a
13:03
Speaker 2: bank account. You know, you couldn't get medical procedures done
13:08
Speaker 2: without your husband. I mean, this was still a time
13:11
Speaker 2: where if you got married, you were expected to quit
13:15
Speaker 2: your job, go home and become a housewife. It was
13:19
Speaker 2: very much that nuclear family sort of situation.
13:23
Speaker 1: You had to be this.
13:24
Speaker 2: But they were also against another thing they were against
13:29
Speaker 2: was this. I heard this idealization of beaury and that
13:34
Speaker 2: a woman's worth is related to how she looks. What
13:38
Speaker 2: you say this was.
13:41
Speaker 1: I mean, that's certainly not a problem now, for fuck's sake.
13:46
Speaker 2: So back to the night and Hant. November twentieth, nineteen seventy,
13:52
Speaker 2: hundreds of women's liberation protesters had infiltrated the Royal Albert Hall.
14:00
Speaker 2: You're thinking, how did they get in?
14:01
Speaker 1: Did they dig their way in allow the great escape?
14:04
Speaker 2: Did they crawl in through some air ducts or whatever
14:07
Speaker 2: the hell they had back in the back in the day. No, no, no,
14:12
Speaker 2: they bought tickets. And this is the part that the
14:17
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy Miss World contest is known for. Like if
14:21
Speaker 2: it is known for anything, it's known for this. Bob Hope,
14:26
Speaker 2: aged comedian Bob Hope was on stage. He was back
14:31
Speaker 2: even after quote unquote an incident with one of the
14:35
Speaker 2: one of the contestants many years earlier. So Bob Hope,
14:40
Speaker 2: we don't know who he has Google, I'm I can't
14:42
Speaker 2: be arked. So he is on stage being a sexist act.
14:47
Speaker 2: I mean, he's so used to saying whatever in his
14:49
Speaker 2: circle and getting away with it because you know, misogyny,
14:54
Speaker 2: misogyny was just part of the parcel.
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Speaker 1: You know, that was just how things were.
15:00
Speaker 2: And if she's making generally demeaning comments about the contestants,
15:04
Speaker 2: about their looks, and you know, that sort of smarmy,
15:06
Speaker 2: a little bit dirty kind of joke, and he's gone
15:08
Speaker 2: around doing his fucking shit and whoop, probably for the
15:12
Speaker 2: first time in his life flower bomb, like baking flower
15:17
Speaker 2: not not like bouquets. They weren't like throwing dandelions at
15:22
Speaker 2: I'm like, ha ha, you're gonna piss the bed tonight, Bob.
15:26
Speaker 1: No, it was. It was like flour, baking flour. And
15:30
Speaker 1: they had those those rattles, the football rattles. Might keep
15:35
Speaker 1: doing the movement. I'm doing the spinning movement with my hand,
15:38
Speaker 1: the clicking clack, so it's a clacking.
15:39
Speaker 2: Spinner and it makes a lot of noise, and Bob
15:43
Speaker 2: freaks out because he thinks that, you know, it's it's
15:46
Speaker 2: it's a spark. He thinks it's like a firecracker sound,
15:49
Speaker 2: so he thinks it's a bomb bomb, and you know,
15:53
Speaker 2: he just so he freaks out and runs off stage.
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Speaker 2: So the protesters pissed off. You know, they're unhappy about
16:02
Speaker 2: the objectification of women, and they wanted to send a
16:05
Speaker 2: clear message about the fucking misogyny. So flower haw and
16:10
Speaker 2: stink bombs away. I read this consistently two ways. The
16:15
Speaker 2: first is that they had planned to cause a commotion
16:20
Speaker 2: during the swimsuit parade, and in another states that they
16:24
Speaker 2: never wanted to embarrass or upset the women taking part.
16:28
Speaker 2: They were always planning to, you know, go for the
16:30
Speaker 2: entertainment section. There's controversy number two, controversy number three, come
16:38
Speaker 2: in your way, Miss Wheden. Marjorie Crystal Johansen was tipped
16:43
Speaker 2: to one but ended up being like the fourth of
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Speaker 2: She didn't even know that the protesters were there until
16:49
Speaker 2: after the pageant. But she also said that nobody from
16:53
Speaker 2: the Women's Liberation Movement actually thought to contact the women involved,
16:58
Speaker 2: although who's to say they didn't, because if they did try,
17:04
Speaker 2: the organizers of the event were very good, quite clearly
17:08
Speaker 2: cutting you know, the interior group of girls off from
17:12
Speaker 2: the rest of the scenario.
17:13
Speaker 1: Smithswedin said that, you know, in Sweden that they.
17:16
Speaker 2: Were a bit more they were already going about the rights,
17:19
Speaker 2: were a bit more equal, they were going forward, you know,
17:22
Speaker 2: they felt like they were a bit more advanced. She
17:24
Speaker 2: doesn't understand why they didn't just come talk to her.
17:26
Speaker 2: I mean, she could just be blown smoke out of ours.
17:28
Speaker 1: We don't know.
17:29
Speaker 2: And she said that, you know, they wanted the same things,
17:31
Speaker 2: but they were just going about it differently. But then
17:34
Speaker 2: another interview with her says that they didn't care about
17:38
Speaker 2: what the girls wanted or the contestants wanted. They were
17:41
Speaker 2: just wanted to make their opinion and it didn't matter,
17:44
Speaker 2: which is where I made the mistake before. So anyway,
17:47
Speaker 2: Miss World had been running for nineteen years, and in
17:51
Speaker 2: those nineteen years, there had never been a black winner.
17:57
Speaker 2: Like initially when I recorded this, I had record or
18:00
Speaker 2: did that, I had stated that the winner had always
18:04
Speaker 2: been white, and that was incorrect. That was that was
18:10
Speaker 2: incorrect because Ritafaria was the first Indian winner, and I
18:17
Speaker 2: think she was in I think that was nineteen sixty five.
18:20
Speaker 2: I think it was in the sixties. I think it
18:22
Speaker 2: was sixty five. I'll have to double check, and there
18:24
Speaker 2: was an Egyptian winner. Here's what I'm gonna say.
18:29
Speaker 1: I went back and I had a little look.
18:30
Speaker 2: I went back and I had a little look at
18:32
Speaker 2: all the contestants and who had won all the winners,
18:34
Speaker 2: because there's photo lists of you know, all the winners
18:37
Speaker 2: of Miss World.
18:38
Speaker 1: And I went through them all.
18:40
Speaker 2: And when I noticed about that those first at least
18:44
Speaker 2: those first nineteen years, is that every single winner, even
18:49
Speaker 2: the ones that were not European looking, it was still
18:54
Speaker 2: very much a eurocentrised version of beauty. If you've ever
19:01
Speaker 2: seen a carry on film. What I noticed was in
19:04
Speaker 2: this a lot of the women looked like the exotic
19:09
Speaker 2: beauties in a carry on film.
19:11
Speaker 1: It's it's Coco bananas.
19:12
Speaker 2: They're just carry on films are are there are very
19:16
Speaker 2: much a moment in time. They are a time capsule
19:19
Speaker 2: of the opinions and events of the era, and they
19:23
Speaker 2: tend to be there's there's brown face and blackface and
19:26
Speaker 2: misogyny and and you know it's it's it's not good anyway,
19:33
Speaker 2: carry on Screaming, which has the least amount of that,
19:36
Speaker 2: surprisingly is it's actually it's actually the best carry on film.
19:40
Speaker 2: I will fight anybody who says otherwise.
19:42
Speaker 1: Jim Dale is a delight.
19:46
Speaker 2: Jim Dale you may know as the narrator from Pushing Daisies,
19:49
Speaker 2: or he did the American narration of the of the
19:53
Speaker 2: hy Potter audiobooks fun fact. Oh goodness, I hope he's
19:57
Speaker 2: still alive. Is he still? If Corona kills Jim Dale,
20:03
Speaker 2: I'm coming for you, bitches. Anyway, back to the story
20:07
Speaker 2: in hand, I went in a big segue there.
20:09
Speaker 1: So yeah.
20:11
Speaker 2: So Rareafaria, as far as I can tell, well, she
20:15
Speaker 2: lives in Dublin. How she's a doctor and she lives
20:17
Speaker 2: in Dublin and Miss World was never the end goal
20:21
Speaker 2: for a lot of women. Miss World was a stepping stone.
20:24
Speaker 2: You'll find this a lot with a lot of beauty pageants.
20:26
Speaker 2: Is that a lot of people do not see that
20:29
Speaker 2: as an end goal. They see it as a stepping
20:32
Speaker 2: stone towards the end goal. A lot of people have
20:37
Speaker 2: used it to progress their careers, whether they were models, actresses,
20:40
Speaker 2: I mean did Preanka Chopra was was as Miss World,
20:45
Speaker 2: Michelle Yo was in Miss World. Ah, there's loads of Peoplesanna,
20:52
Speaker 2: Rosanna Dawson. Rosanna Dawson was Christoperg's daughter.
20:55
Speaker 1: Rosanna was a was.
20:57
Speaker 2: One Miss World one year and people were like, she
20:59
Speaker 2: only won it because it Christo Burgh's daughter. It's like
21:01
Speaker 2: nobody likes the song lady and read that much. It's fine. So,
21:04
Speaker 2: like I said, everyone was very everyone was light skinned.
21:08
Speaker 2: I'll say that there was no black winner.
21:13
Speaker 1: Until that night, like I do not want to.
21:17
Speaker 2: So when I initially recorded this, I said that every
21:19
Speaker 2: winner up until and those nineteen years had been white,
21:21
Speaker 2: and that was that was erasure. That was my own
21:25
Speaker 2: fault for not looking up and which is why I've
21:28
Speaker 2: re recorded this for the third fucking time, because I
21:33
Speaker 2: did consider just going oh when I said this, I
21:35
Speaker 2: meant this, or I found out this and had little
21:38
Speaker 2: addendum on it. But these people deserve more than this.
21:44
Speaker 2: So that night, November twentieth, nineteen seventy, for the first
21:50
Speaker 2: time in history, a black woman was crowned Miss World.
21:59
Speaker 2: Fun fat Unless you look up specifically this incident, it's
22:04
Speaker 2: actually difficult to find the first black woman to be
22:08
Speaker 2: crowned in Miss World. I looked it up and like
22:12
Speaker 2: even they have like a little list of their first
22:14
Speaker 2: African winner, the first American, the first African American winner,
22:19
Speaker 2: the first Indian womer, the first East Asian winner. They
22:24
Speaker 2: have that, but nowhere, nowhere in.
22:28
Speaker 1: Their list is.
22:30
Speaker 2: Miss Grenada Jennifer Hosten. If I've pronounced her name wrong,
22:35
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. One thing I have learned. I used
22:39
Speaker 2: to be so bad for this when I was younger,
22:41
Speaker 2: but never mock someone for being unable to pronounce something,
22:46
Speaker 2: because it means they learned it by reading it and
22:48
Speaker 2: not hearing it.
22:49
Speaker 1: And that's the difference.
22:51
Speaker 2: Not only did Jennifer Hosten win Miss World, but Miss
22:57
Speaker 2: Africa South Pearl jan was first runner up, so she
23:01
Speaker 2: was second place and this was unprecedented, like having two
23:07
Speaker 2: black women at the top of this in general white
23:14
Speaker 2: dominated you know pageant.
23:17
Speaker 1: Where European looks were the bomb.
23:20
Speaker 2: It was just bananas was it was coco pop. So
23:25
Speaker 2: a little history about the winner, The first black winner
23:29
Speaker 2: of Miss World, Jennifer Houston So. She was born in
23:32
Speaker 2: Grenada in nineteen forty seven. She studied in London, worked
23:37
Speaker 2: for the BBC Caribbean Radio service and then went on
23:40
Speaker 2: to be a flight attendant probably would have been called
23:42
Speaker 2: an air hostess back in the day, but now flight attendant.
23:46
Speaker 2: After winning Miss World, she went on the USO Tour
23:50
Speaker 2: with Bob Hope and after getting married, she moved to Canada.
23:55
Speaker 2: Earned a master's degree in Arts and Political science WOO
23:59
Speaker 2: and Internet relations cheer for political sciences, international relations and
24:05
Speaker 2: from Carlton University, Ottawa.
24:08
Speaker 1: She has two kids, a son and a daughter.
24:10
Speaker 2: She goes on to become a Canadian diplomat and.
24:14
Speaker 1: As far as I know now, but did Jennifer stop there?
24:18
Speaker 2: No, No, she becomes a diplomat and then what hah?
24:21
Speaker 2: And then she gets a master's in counseling and currently
24:26
Speaker 2: as far as I know, is working as a therapist
24:29
Speaker 2: and she's.
24:29
Speaker 1: Got five grandkids. She has in all, and she published.
24:34
Speaker 2: A memoir which I have ordered, but it still hasn't
24:37
Speaker 2: delivered yet because of the pandemic. But I didn't want
24:40
Speaker 2: to wait too long before recording my first episode because clearly,
24:46
Speaker 2: clearly I.
24:46
Speaker 1: Needed the practice.
24:48
Speaker 2: Pearl Johnson, who came second, her life didn't really change
24:52
Speaker 2: much well because of dun Dandan apartheid. She was back
24:58
Speaker 2: living in a township, back in segregated South Africa, and
25:03
Speaker 2: she lost her machinist job and everyone thought she was
25:07
Speaker 2: rich because you know, she came second in this world,
25:10
Speaker 2: so it didn't really help her. But she did get
25:14
Speaker 2: her dream eventually, because when because at the age of
25:18
Speaker 2: fifty eight, she got her dream job and she became
25:21
Speaker 2: a singer.
25:22
Speaker 1: Again.
25:23
Speaker 2: We're gonna go back to the night in question. I
25:25
Speaker 2: just wanted to take a minute to tell you about
25:26
Speaker 2: the top two winners. They're sort of discounted and not
25:29
Speaker 2: really mentioned enough in history, and I think it's far
25:32
Speaker 2: too easy to focus on the issues of the contest
25:36
Speaker 2: instead of the women involved, because there are still people.
25:40
Speaker 2: And I think it's too easy to ignore the people
25:42
Speaker 2: who get involved because a lot of people use it
25:45
Speaker 2: as a steppingstone. But no, I'm not gonna go into
25:47
Speaker 2: rant it right now.
25:48
Speaker 1: Anyhow.
25:48
Speaker 2: So Miss Sweden was you know, she was tipped to win.
25:52
Speaker 2: She was a favorite.
25:52
Speaker 1: She was she was blonde, she was blue eyed, she
25:55
Speaker 1: was the beautiful.
25:56
Speaker 2: She had legs for dys This is why I shouldn't
25:59
Speaker 2: do acts anyway. So Grenada's first Miss Africa South the second,
26:07
Speaker 2: and the audience members go wild, the good, the good, stiff,
26:13
Speaker 2: upper up British public.
26:15
Speaker 1: What do they do for?
26:16
Speaker 2: They stomp outside and they congregate in the street and
26:19
Speaker 2: they start chanting.
26:20
Speaker 1: Sweet done, Sweet done, Sweet done.
26:23
Speaker 2: I don't know why I made them sound German. I
26:25
Speaker 2: mean maybe they were just Abba fans.
26:27
Speaker 1: It was Aba around. Yet it doesn't matter. I'm keeping
26:31
Speaker 1: it in.
26:31
Speaker 2: So next thing, you know, it's all chaos in the media,
26:34
Speaker 2: So the BBC, in the newspapers are always even complaints
26:37
Speaker 2: and accusations about the results, and there's racism from both sides.
26:42
Speaker 2: So daily shit Rag the Sun said that Miss Granada's
26:46
Speaker 2: victory was a conspiracy by black members of the judging panel.
26:50
Speaker 2: All right, So the Prime Minister of Grenada was on
26:53
Speaker 2: the judging panel and so people were thinking, oh, it
26:55
Speaker 2: was probably round because he was on it. They even
26:58
Speaker 2: touched on that and in the movie, in the movie
27:01
Speaker 2: Misbehavior with Miss Cornetty. But there was loads of judges,
27:06
Speaker 2: so a lot of the judges were from other participating countries.
27:10
Speaker 1: Oh, there was more than.
27:11
Speaker 2: One black judge here, ago the black person one. Oh,
27:17
Speaker 2: the whites.
27:18
Speaker 1: Are being oppressed here.
27:20
Speaker 2: So the main issue was like a lot of people
27:22
Speaker 2: didn't understand the voting system. So Grenada got two first
27:25
Speaker 2: Plaze votes and Sweden got four first Plaze votes and this.
27:29
Speaker 1: Is out of nine people.
27:32
Speaker 2: But Miss the point system is probably closer to like
27:36
Speaker 2: proportional representation than it is a first past the post system.
27:42
Speaker 2: So hosting Miss Grenada got more second, third, fourth, and
27:48
Speaker 2: fifth markings than all the other finalists, so.
27:52
Speaker 1: All in all, she had more points at the end
27:55
Speaker 1: than the other finalists had.
27:56
Speaker 2: So due to this controversy, Julia Morley, Eric Martley's wife,
28:02
Speaker 2: had to resign from her position at in a Miss World.
28:06
Speaker 2: People just couldn't understand the voting system and they thought
28:09
Speaker 2: it was rigged and whatever. Her voting husband, Eric had
28:13
Speaker 2: to physically show the voting cards and explain the voting
28:17
Speaker 2: system to show that it hadn't been some nefarious scheme.
28:23
Speaker 2: Because he showed up with the receipts, Julia was able
28:26
Speaker 2: to skip back into her job.
28:27
Speaker 1: Again like nothing had happened. Hooray for nipotism.
28:32
Speaker 2: Like I said, for a lot of these women, it's
28:34
Speaker 2: not just Miss World. I mean for some it is
28:39
Speaker 2: this is the pinnacle of their career. This is what
28:40
Speaker 2: they want. This is a goal they want to achieve completely.
28:43
Speaker 2: And for others it's a stepping stone to other things.
28:47
Speaker 1: Miss Granada Jennifer Holsten.
28:49
Speaker 2: Said that Miss Africa South Pearl Johnson said to her,
28:53
Speaker 2: winning the contest was about more than just representing their countries.
29:00
Speaker 1: It was about breaking.
29:01
Speaker 2: The barriers of Eurocentric.
29:03
Speaker 1: Beauty standards and norms.
29:05
Speaker 2: Like I said, even even the women who were not white,
29:10
Speaker 2: the women of color that they did have, were still
29:13
Speaker 2: very much what the European standard of exotic. I hate
29:21
Speaker 2: that term, Like the only thing that should be exotic
29:24
Speaker 2: is your fruit. Okay, people are not exotic fruit is
29:28
Speaker 2: But that's the man from del Monte says, fucking no,
29:33
Speaker 2: I don't ever been a Native American winner of Miss World.
29:37
Speaker 2: Actually I'm gonna have to look it up. But here's
29:41
Speaker 2: the thing. Black is beautiful brown is beautiful, white or beautiful.
29:47
Speaker 2: I mean, we're kind of we're kind of peachy beige.
29:49
Speaker 2: But I say that as the human equivalent of man is.
29:53
Speaker 2: And I don't want to see any other colors because
29:55
Speaker 2: it's just been dismissive and racist and I'm not I'm
30:00
Speaker 2: not here for any of that bullshit. So I was
30:02
Speaker 2: looking through articles about Miss World and like the first
30:05
Speaker 2: ABC whinner the first day when I or so on
30:08
Speaker 2: and so forth, but there was no mention of Jennifer
30:13
Speaker 2: Houstin at all. And for the record, the reason I'm
30:18
Speaker 2: saying black so much is because I kept saying women
30:21
Speaker 2: of color throughout when I when the first and second
30:25
Speaker 2: time I recorded this, I kept saying women of color,
30:29
Speaker 2: and so I completely erased other winners like a fucking dick.
30:35
Speaker 1: And there's the thing.
30:36
Speaker 2: The women's liberation movement, the women's liberation disruption of the
30:39
Speaker 2: event basically overshadowed what was, you know, the first black
30:45
Speaker 2: women to win Miss World. I mean, in fairness, they
30:49
Speaker 2: had no idea it was going to.
30:50
Speaker 1: Be such a historic event. I mean, if your feminism
30:54
Speaker 1: isn't intersectional, it isn't feminism, and you can fuck right off,
31:00
Speaker 1: thank you very much. I mean.
31:04
Speaker 2: So here's the thing I was trying to look up
31:06
Speaker 2: saying if there was ever a Native American Miss World,
31:09
Speaker 2: and as far as I can tell, there wasn't.
31:11
Speaker 1: If there was, just tweet me let me know. So
31:15
Speaker 1: there's no.
31:16
Speaker 2: Transgender, no openly gay, no queer women. This is who wow. See,
31:23
Speaker 2: this is why Miss World really needs to get with
31:25
Speaker 2: the times. Oh my god, I forgot to mention right,
31:28
Speaker 2: So the bikini was banned. It's like a lot of
31:30
Speaker 2: countries with religious reasons and traditions. They basically said they
31:36
Speaker 2: weren't going to send any women to it in the
31:39
Speaker 2: future because of the bikini situation, which is probably why
31:42
Speaker 2: the second year of Miss World had like the least
31:44
Speaker 2: amount of people. But the Pope even was like, mmmm,
31:50
Speaker 2: none of this stuff, so he was outspoken against it,
31:54
Speaker 2: so that got taken away. So basically, when you got
31:59
Speaker 2: crowned is Miss World, you would wear a swimsuit, so
32:02
Speaker 2: they would wear like modest swimwear, and then in nineteen
32:06
Speaker 2: seventy six, it was when you got in nineteen seventy six,
32:09
Speaker 2: they were like evening gowns, which is why now everyone
32:11
Speaker 2: gets crowned in an evening gown.
32:14
Speaker 1: So at one point bikinis.
32:16
Speaker 2: Were allowed back in I think, but then in twenty
32:19
Speaker 2: thirteen because it was in Balle, they had to wear
32:23
Speaker 2: they had to wear like a really modest swimsuit with
32:25
Speaker 2: a traditional srong because you know, for you know, out
32:29
Speaker 2: of respect. But apart from that, it's like, I think
32:32
Speaker 2: the very first winner is like the only one ever
32:34
Speaker 2: to be ever to be crowned in a bikini. So yeah,
32:39
Speaker 2: basically late seventies, early eighties, Julia Morley comes up with
32:45
Speaker 2: the idea of beauty with a purpose, so it adds
32:48
Speaker 2: sort of bits about intelligence and personality, so it wasn't
32:51
Speaker 2: just look at the pretty girl and a pretty little
32:53
Speaker 2: swimicit and it's like, but if you ever seen those
32:56
Speaker 2: some of the questions where they asked them really complicated
32:59
Speaker 2: politic questions and they have to respond in what is
33:04
Speaker 2: probably the most placid answers they can possibly give while
33:09
Speaker 2: still sounding intelligent but not too intelligent. Here's the thing,
33:13
Speaker 2: it's not really broadcast anywhere that much anymore. It's it
33:16
Speaker 2: used to be on the BBC, but they stopped because
33:19
Speaker 2: they were like, eh, it's it's sort of it was
33:22
Speaker 2: out of fashion. BBC quick broadcasting it then I think
33:26
Speaker 2: Sky had it for a bit and then Channel five
33:28
Speaker 2: and after that, I don't know. I don't care. So
33:31
Speaker 2: Miss World organization it basically it's it's raised about over
33:36
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty million pounds for charities, and it's.
33:41
Speaker 1: A private company.
33:42
Speaker 2: It's franchised in like one hundred countries. So so I mean,
33:45
Speaker 2: if it can afford to raise and give away two
33:49
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty million pounds for I mean one, that's
33:54
Speaker 2: a tax right off. In two it is a drop
33:58
Speaker 2: in the ocean to what they must be making. You know,
34:02
Speaker 2: like that's too much. Think about how much they have
34:05
Speaker 2: to be making an order to have that. But in general,
34:10
Speaker 2: but that's that's how much we know because, like I mean, Inverness,
34:12
Speaker 2: they could give more, but because it's a private company,
34:16
Speaker 2: we can't really officially get the numbers of what their
34:22
Speaker 2: chargeable contributions are. More controversy with Miss World gonna I'm
34:27
Speaker 2: gonna go about this very bit. Nineteen seventy three, the winner,
34:30
Speaker 2: Marjorie Wallace, was stripped of her title because she failed
34:35
Speaker 2: to fulfill.
34:35
Speaker 1: The basic requirements of the job.
34:37
Speaker 2: So they got the one of the runners up to
34:39
Speaker 2: take her place, but didn't give her the title. Effectively,
34:45
Speaker 2: Marjorie was engaged to a racing car driver but ended up,
34:50
Speaker 2: you know, spending some quality time with Welsh crooner Tom Jones.
34:56
Speaker 2: I mean, who wouldn't who doesn't love the Welsh, who
34:58
Speaker 2: doesn't love the Welsh? And then her fiance ends up
35:03
Speaker 2: dying and she stripped of the title. I mean, it
35:06
Speaker 2: was just bad luck for her all round. There was
35:09
Speaker 2: a winner, I think it was in the sixties, the
35:12
Speaker 2: winner of Miss World had her title.
35:15
Speaker 1: She was dethroned.
35:17
Speaker 2: Her title was stripped from her because they discovered she
35:20
Speaker 2: had an eighteen month old child and was unmarried. Although
35:24
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure the rules at the time for being
35:26
Speaker 2: in this world were that you had to be unmarried.
35:29
Speaker 2: So yeah, effectively, there was like a morality clause in this.
35:31
Speaker 2: So Marjorie before she had done it, and then this
35:36
Speaker 2: winner whose name I count remember, it's.
35:39
Speaker 1: Gonna bug me so much, she had it.
35:43
Speaker 2: So yeah. Nineteen seventy six, countries started to boycott the
35:48
Speaker 2: pageant because South Africa kept sending, kept sending like two contestants,
35:52
Speaker 2: you know, Miss South Africa, Miss Africa South, one black.
35:56
Speaker 1: One white.
35:57
Speaker 2: So South Africa competed for the very life time in
36:01
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven, and it didn't come back until after
36:05
Speaker 2: apartheid disintegrated in nineteen eighty one. Gabriella Broom miss Germany.
36:10
Speaker 2: She won but actually had to resign one day after winning.
36:15
Speaker 2: My boffriend does not agree with me, meaning or doesn't
36:18
Speaker 2: she said. Her boyfriend disapproved of it at the time,
36:22
Speaker 2: but turns out she was Actually she posed nude because
36:25
Speaker 2: apparently being in a bikini is fine.
36:28
Speaker 1: You know, but seeing a nipple is not fine.
36:32
Speaker 2: For some reason, she posed naked for a magazine and
36:35
Speaker 2: as such she quit instead of having it blasted all
36:39
Speaker 2: over the papers. And two thousand and two, so basically,
36:44
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two it was supposed to be
36:45
Speaker 2: held in Nigeria. But there was a woman Amina lal I.
36:50
Speaker 2: Hope I've said that right. She was. She was basically
36:54
Speaker 2: waiting to be stoned for adultery, for having a child
36:58
Speaker 2: outside of wedlock. At so Catherine Storland of Norway and
37:03
Speaker 2: other contestants just decided they were like, no, I'm not
37:05
Speaker 2: being involved in this, so I mean a la Wal
37:08
Speaker 2: She was, I'm so sorry I have probably butchered her name.
37:13
Speaker 1: She said that.
37:15
Speaker 2: Instead of boycotting they could use their power and influence
37:20
Speaker 2: to shed light and show what was happening in help
37:25
Speaker 2: her cause. And in the end, that's that's basically what happened.
37:28
Speaker 2: I mean, she was she got some there were some
37:30
Speaker 2: great human rights lawyers involved, and effectively she gets off.
37:34
Speaker 2: So like literally just like country after country started boycott
37:38
Speaker 2: and they were like.
37:38
Speaker 1: Oh, not doing this.
37:40
Speaker 2: The last sort of controversy I can find is Miss
37:44
Speaker 2: World twenty fifteen. Anastacial Lund who was Miss World Canada
37:49
Speaker 2: couldn't get a travel visa for China and missed the deadline,
37:53
Speaker 2: so she was declared a persona no grata by the
37:56
Speaker 2: Chinese embassy in Ottawa because she openly criticized China's.
38:01
Speaker 1: Human rights violations.
38:04
Speaker 2: So she actually ended up being able to play, so
38:06
Speaker 2: she was allowed to compete in Miss World twenty sixteen
38:09
Speaker 2: because they were like, ah, maybe not so that's Miss World.
38:13
Speaker 2: So finally, the women's liberation movement, like there was rumblings
38:17
Speaker 2: about it, it wasn't huge, but then when this went together.
38:23
Speaker 2: So but because of this, because then you know, the
38:25
Speaker 2: flour bombs, the stink bombs, the water pistols, the click
38:28
Speaker 2: of the clackers and all the stuff. They had going
38:30
Speaker 2: on at the time they ended up. You know, it
38:33
Speaker 2: actually brought publicity to the cause that they just didn't
38:36
Speaker 2: have before. So the Women's Liberation March in nineteen seventy
38:40
Speaker 2: one was much bigger than they ever thought it was
38:43
Speaker 2: going to be because people were so aware and they
38:46
Speaker 2: were still you know, they were still you know, hopped
38:49
Speaker 2: up from you know, what they did at Miss World,
38:52
Speaker 2: because that's a fucking huge thing to do on a
38:54
Speaker 2: nation international stage, you know what I mean, And so
38:58
Speaker 2: which really helped, you know, kickstart things for the women's
39:03
Speaker 2: rights movements. For that what I think what was that
39:06
Speaker 2: second wave of feminism in the UK.
39:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna lead you with this.
39:11
Speaker 2: See, I think this world for what it was at
39:13
Speaker 2: the time, was fine for what it was in the fifties.
39:16
Speaker 2: In its inception, it hasn't really grown that much. And
39:21
Speaker 2: I think it's fine having a purpose, but it needs
39:25
Speaker 2: to be open. I mean, I think it's insane that
39:27
Speaker 2: there's no openly gay people in beauty pageants. Why everybody
39:32
Speaker 2: has to have flowing locks of voluminous hair, or why
39:38
Speaker 2: it's very much this cookie cutter style of beauty, like
39:41
Speaker 2: even though they're so it's like they're very different, but
39:44
Speaker 2: there are certain components that are very much the same.
39:48
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.
39:48
Speaker 2: Beauty queens should be plus sized, they should be gay,
39:53
Speaker 2: they should be rainbow haired and beautiful. They're beautiful regardless
39:58
Speaker 2: of your skin color or your color or Granted, beurty
40:02
Speaker 2: is in the eye of the beholder, but I really
40:04
Speaker 2: don't think the beholder has to be men all the
40:06
Speaker 2: fucking time or what men think is beautiful.
40:10
Speaker 1: If your feminism isn't intersectional, then it ain't feminism.
40:14
Speaker 2: You're just an asshole who's self serving, and I am
40:16
Speaker 2: dumb with your bullshit.
40:17
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
40:18
Speaker 2: No, I've dealt with too many swerves and turfs recently
40:21
Speaker 2: for this fucking nonsense. But I would love to see
40:25
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna leave you on a happy note before
40:28
Speaker 2: because otherwise I'm gonna get angry. Some of my favorite
40:31
Speaker 2: stuff to do with pageants are some pageant movies that
40:35
Speaker 2: are amazing, drop dead gorgeous. Oh, I love it so much.
40:40
Speaker 2: I love it so much. Anything with Kirsten Dunst in
40:43
Speaker 2: the two thousands is generally gold. It is perfection and
40:48
Speaker 2: it is worth watching, and it is a dark comedy.
40:51
Speaker 2: It is so good.
40:52
Speaker 1: It warms my heart. Miscongeniality.
40:56
Speaker 2: Also, yes, why are all the movies about pagiant? It's
41:00
Speaker 2: comedies anyway, Dumpling on Netflix.
41:05
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you have to watch it. It is so good.
41:07
Speaker 1: It is, it is, it is. I cried.
41:09
Speaker 2: I cried watching it, and like, ah, but so those those.
41:14
Speaker 1: You should watch, those don't watch. In sentiuable it's not good.
41:18
Speaker 1: I was hoping it was going to be good.
41:19
Speaker 2: It has so many work, it has so many great actors,
41:23
Speaker 2: It has so many interesting points that it could have made.
41:27
Speaker 2: It just feels like it consistently missed the mark and
41:30
Speaker 2: then went second start to the writing straight on until morning.
41:34
Speaker 2: I will not watch toddlers and tiurs. I think it's
41:36
Speaker 2: creepy to do that to babies.
41:38
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but no.
41:40
Speaker 2: Anyway, I'm going to go before I go on to
41:42
Speaker 2: some big angry feminist rant. So adios au
41:45
Speaker 1: Revoir and of vas my friends, farewell