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2023 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

3. CROWNing a New Kind of Miss America

verfasst von : Emily L. Newman

Erschienen in: Fashioning Politics and Protests

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

One of the most famous, if not infamous, protests of all time was the 1968 Miss America protest in Atlantic City. As second wave feminists were becoming more prominent and vocal, this event was a critical social moment for them to enter mainstream discussions about women’s rights. The pageant put women’s bodies on display not just for objectification but for an actual contest based on looks. These protests were a visible way to challenge the way women’s bodies were being presented. By studying two winners, Bess Myerson and Vanessa Williams, I show how each woman challenged the standard that the pageant was privileging, be it Christianity or Whiteness. Interspersed with discussions of artwork, quinceañeras, and popular trends, this chapter discusses Miss America’s legacy and two current political discussions that center female bodies and feminine style at the heart of the issues. The use of pageant gowns and quinceañera dresses to protest political situations will also be examined, as they address both race and problematic cultural problems that stem from the physicality of bodies. The Free the Nipple campaign began in 2012 with the release of a film of the same name. Celebrities and models have become outspokenly critical of censorship practices that only focus on women’s breasts and nipples and not men’s bodies. Another political action, the pushing forward of the CROWN Act in many states and federal government, wants to prevent Black women from being discriminated because of their natural hair. Paralleling the early discussions about the ways women’s bodies are controlled, these movements encourage the public to rethink the way women’s bodies are still controlled by the state and the media.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Redress the Red Dress

Nächstes Kapitel When Women Wear the Pants

New York Radical Feminists, “No More Miss America! (1968),” in Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 584.

New York Radical Feminists, “No More Miss America! (1968).”

The bra-burning myth came from an interview Robin Morgan gave before the protest to New York Post reporter Lindsy Van Gelder. They intended to burn the bras, so that information was shared, yet later, the protestors would acquiesce to officials because of potential danger to the site. This is explored further in Bonnie J. Dow, “Feminism, Miss America, and Media Mythology,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 6, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 129–131. See also Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (New York: Dial, 1999), 36–37; Myra Ferree and Beth Hess, Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement Across Four Decades of Change (New York: Routledge, 2000), 83.

From 1982 to 1987, there was another iconic series of protests against the Miss California Pageant held in Santa Cruz each year. While there is not room here for this point, this pageant protest was notable for its dresses made of meat. For more information, see Emily L. Newman, “Fashionable Flesh: Meat as Clothing,” Fashion, Style & Popular Culture 4, no. 1 (2017): 105–120.

Roxane Gay, “Fifty Years Ago, Protesters Took on the Miss America Pageant and Electrified the Feminist Movement,” Smithsonian Magazine, January 2018. The pageant predates the significant work by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, whose Maintenance Art series incorporates cleaning and projects that mirror domestic practices of women. For more, see Patricia C. Philips, Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art (London: Prestel Publishing, 2016).

Robin Morgan, The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches 1968–1992 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992), 27.

Bonnie J. Dow, “Feminism, Miss America, and Media Mythology,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 6, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 127–149.

New York Radical Feminists, “No More Miss America!” (1968),” 587.

Kate Shindle, Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2020), 122.

Amy Argetsinger, There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America (New York: One Signal Publishers/Atria, 2021), xxiii. Catalina, one of the sponsors that would drop the pageant as Betbeze refused to wear their swimsuits after the competition, would actually go on to start the Miss USA pageant. Angela Osborne, Miss America: The Dream Lives On; A 75-Year Celebration (Dallas: Taylor, 1995), 130.

Osborne, Miss America, 135.

Margot Mifflin, Looking for Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2021).

In this book, Deford takes his knowledge of sports writing and applies it to the pageant world maintaining his blunt and straightforward approach. Frank Deford, There She Is: The Life and Times of Miss America. Rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1978), 260–261.

For a much fuller history, see Frank Deford, There She Is; and Mifflin, Looking for Miss America.

Osborne, Miss America, 553–559.

Shindle, Being Miss America, 122.

Qtd. in Osborne, Miss America: The Dream Lives On, 19.

Sarah Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 23. See also, Mandy McMicheal, Miss America’s God: Faith and Identity in America’s Oldest Pageant (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019).

Mifflin, Looking for Miss America, 25.

Mifflin, Looking for Miss America, 22.

Osborne, Miss America: The Dream Lives On, 22–29.

The scholarship contest is now one of, if not, the defining characteristic of the Miss America competition today. The prize money with intended use to further education distinguishes the event from the Miss USA and Miss Universe world, which are strictly determined on the beauty of the competing women.

Osborne, Miss America: The Dream Lives On, 100.

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 99.

Shindle, Being Miss America, 22.

Osborne, Miss America: The Dream Lives On, 92–97.

McMicheal, Miss America’s God, 93.

Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, 75–76.

Shindle, Being Miss America, 25.

Banet-Weiser, “Miss America, National Identity, and the Identity Politics of Whiteness,” in “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant, eds Elwood Watson and Darcy Martin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 76.

Myerson would go on to live a life filled with dramatic ups and downs. After her pageant success, she had a long run on the hit game show I’ve Got a Secret. She would have a life in politics, working as the first New York City Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, which would lead to her working with three different presidents. She would later campaign with Edward I. Koch for mayor, though her political career would devolve into a scandal known as the “Bess Mess” which involved an affair with a married man made public and a later indictment for serious misconduct (resulting in an acquittal). The rest of her life was spent quietly and devoted to charity. For more see Enid Nemy and William McDonald, “Bess Myerson, New Yorker of Beauty, Wit, Service and Scandal, Dies at 90,” The New York Times, January 5, 2015; and Jennifer Preston, Queen Bess: The Unauthorized Biography of Bess Myerson (New York: McGraw Hill/Contemporary, 1990).

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 100.

Vanessa Williams and Helen Tinch Williams, You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other) (New York: Gotham, 2012), 7–8.

Shindle, Being Miss America, 81.

Shindle, Being Miss America, 85–86.

Argetsinger, There She Was, 115.

Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, 125.

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 115.

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 114.

Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, 129.

Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, 128–152.

Shindle, Being Miss America, 87.

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 120.

McMicheal, Miss America’s God, 31–32.

Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, 128–152.

For more information on Sarah Baartmann, see Robin Mitchell, Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2020); and Shayne Lee, Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality, and Popular Culture (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2010).

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 122.

Qtd. in Argetsinger, There She Was, 126.

See, for example, Ann-Marie Bivans, Miss America: In Pursuit of the Crown: The Complete Guide to the Miss America Pageant (New York: MasterMedia, 1991), 30–31.

Katie Rogers, “Vanessa Williams Receives ‘Unexpected’ Apology at Miss America” New York Times, September 15, 2015.

Kimberly Brown Pellum, Black Beauties: African American Pageant Queens in the Segregated South (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2020), 23–30.

Brown Pellum, Black Beauties, 40–42.

Brown Pellum, Black Beauties, 98.

Maxine Craig, Ain’’t I a Beauty Queen? Culture, Social Movements, and the Rearticulation of Race (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 4.

Brown Pellum, Black Beauties, 17–18.

Craig, Ain’t I a Beauty Queen?, 23.

Lori L. Tharps, “Black Hair is…,” in Textures: The History and Art of Black Hair, eds. Joseph L. Underwood and Tamika N. Ellington (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Museum and Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2021), 19.

Tamika N. Ellington, “The Conception of Textures: The History and Art of Black Hair,” in Textures: The History and Art of Black Hair, 15.

Tharps, “Black Hair is…,” 20.

Niangi Batlukisi, “Hair in African Art and Cultures,” in Hair in African Art and Culture, Roy Sieber and Frank Herreman, eds. (New York: Museum of African Art, 2000), 25.

Kennell Jackson, “What is Really Happening Here? Black Hair among African-Americans and in American Culture,” in Hair in African Art and Culture, 175.

Tharps, “Black Hair is…,” 22.

Irene Tsatsos, “Between What We See: Alison Saar and Irene Tsatsos in Conversation,” in Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe, eds. Rebecca McGrew and Irene Tsatsos (Claremont, CA: Benton Museum of Art and Pasadena, CA: Armory Center for the Arts, 2020), 71.

Tsatsos, “Between What We See,” 72.

Jessica Dallow, “Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood,” Feminist Studies 30, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 95–96.

Christina Sharpe, “Alison Saar: Alchemist,” in Alison Saar, 93.

Isaac Julien and Thelma Golden, “Conversation with the Artist,” in Lorna Simpson by Okwui Enwezor (New York: American Federation of Arts and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2006), 134.

Lorna Simpson, “Wigs” MoMA Learning, https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/lorna-simpson-wigs-1994/.

For further background information on both artists, see Enwezor, Lorna Simpson; and McGrew and Tsatsos, Alison Saar.

Christopher Knight, “ART REVIEW: Crushed by Its Good Intentions: Under the Banner of Opening up the Institutional Art World to Expansive Diversity, the Whitney Biennial Has in Fact Perversely Narrowed Its Scope to an Almost Excruciating Degree,” The Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-10-ca-1335-story.html; Amelia Ames, “Can the Whitney Biennial Ever Live Up to Its Controversial, Politically-Charged 1993 Exhibition?,” Artspace, March 13, 2017. https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/in_focus/the-whitney-biennial-1993-the-role-of-institutions-in-a-turbulent-society-54620; and Jerry Saltz, “Jerry Saltz on ’93 in Art,” New York Magazine, February 1, 2013. https://nymag.com/arts/art/features/jerry-saltz-1993-art/.

Rebecca McGrew, “Alison Saar’s Radical Act of Sustenance,” in Alison Saar, 15.

Gary Brewer, “‘I Wanted to Make Art that Told a Story’: Alison Saar on Her Eloquent Sculptures,” Hyperallergic, May 1, 2018, https://hyperallergic.com/440597/i-wanted-to-make-art-that-told-a-story-alison-saar-on-her-eloquent-sculptures/.

Riunite & Ice here refers to an Italian wine that was imported into New York in the 1950s, and still sold in cans and various types across the United States. Popular for their advertisements in the 1970s and 1980s, which used their popular tagline: “Riunite on ice, that’s nice.” Riunite, Riunite, https://www.riunite.it/en, 2022.

Joseph Akel, “A Photographic Memory: In the Studio with Lorna Simpson,” The Paris Review, October 15, 2015. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/10/15/a-photographic-memory-in-the-studio-with-lorna-simpson/.

Elizabeth Alexander, “Of the Black & Boisterous Hair,” in Lorna Simpson: Collages, by Lorna Simpson (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2018), n.p.

Monica Uszerowicz, “Lorna Simpson’s Glowing Collages of Women and Heads of Hair,” Hyperallergic, June 12, 2018. https://hyperallergic.com/445363/lorna-simpson-collages-chronicle-books/.

THR Staff, “Miss America CEO Suspended After Vulgar Emails About Contestants Revealed,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 22, 2017. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/miss-america-ceo-sam-haskell-suspended-vulgar-emails-contestants-revealed-1070061/.

Lyz Lenz, “The Heavy Crown of Gretchen Carlson,” Columbia Journalism Review, May 14, 2019. https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/gretchen-carlson-fox-miss-america.php.

Argetsinger, There She Was, 262–275.

Argetsinger, There She Was, 297.

Michele Salcedo, Quinceañera! The Essential Guide to Planning the Perfect Sweet Fifteen Celebration (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), xiii.

Lauren Alexis Fisher, ‘Prabal Gurung Asks “Who Gets to Be American?’ on the Runway,” Harper’s Bazaar, September 9, 2019. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/fashion-week/a28965513/prabal-gurung-spring-2020-show/.

The piece began as Miss Afro-American Abstraction in response to a show of that name held in Queens. At that point, however, it existed conceptually but not as a physically distinct entity as it would emerge later that year. For more information, see Zoé Whitley, “Mlle Bourgeoise Noir: Throws Down the Whip: Alter Ego as Force Critic of Institutions,” in Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And, eds. Aruna D’Souza and Catherine Morris (New York: Dancing Foxes Press and Brooklyn Museum of Art, 2021), 46–57.

Lorraine O’Grady, Writing in Space, 1973–2019 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020), 10.

For much more in-depth discussion of this work, see Whitley, “Mlle Bourgeoise Noir,” 46–57; Stephanie Sparling Williams, Speaking Out of Turn: Lorraine O’Grady and the Art of Language (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2021). For more on her life and career, not only use those resources, but also see D’Souza and Morris, Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And.

Sparling Williams, Speaking Out of Turn, 63.

Emma Shapiro, “Free the Nipple: A History of a Hidden Movement,” Hyperallergic, October 15, 2021. https://hyperallergic.com/681937/free-the-nipple-a-history-of-a-hidden-movement/.

Julia Jacobs. “Will Instagram Ever ‘Free the Nipple?;” New York Times, November 22, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/arts/design/instagram-free-the-nipple.html.

Jacobs, “Will Instagram Ever ‘Free the Nipple’?”

Sofia P. Caldeira, Sandre De Ridder, and Sofie Van Bauwel, “Between the Mundane and the Political: Women’s Self-Representations on Instagram,” Social Media + Society (July–September 2020): 11.

Gretchen Faust, “Hair, Blood and the Nipple: Instagram Censorship and the Female Body,” in Digital Environments: Ethnographic Perspectives Across Global Online and Offline Spaces, eds. Urte Undine Frömming, Steffen Köhn, Samantha Fox, and Mike Terry (Bielefeld: transcript, 2017), 11.

Brown Pellum, Black Beauties, 127.

“About” The CROWN Act, 2022. https://www.thecrownact.com.

Argetsinger, There She Was, 264.

Titel: CROWNing a New Kind of Miss America
verfasst von: Emily L. Newman
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Fashioning Politics and Protests
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-16226-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-16227-5

Copyright-Jahr: 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16227-5_3