“Misbehaviour”, Miss World 1970: The Launch of A Revolution
Misbehaviour (2020) is a film based on a true story of the women’s liberation movement who took a protest against Miss World 1970, in London. This film is directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and starred by Keira Knightley, Jessie Buckley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Loreece Harrison, and Greg Kinnear.
“We’re not beautiful, we’re not ugly, we’re angry!” These words were written on posters and leaflets of the women’s liberation activists in 1970. They were not attacking the contestants, but were opposing the assumption behind the Miss World contest that symbolize the exploitation of women. As Sally Alexander–one of the protagonists of this film says “women are not an object, we are not here for the pleasure of others”. She sees the Miss World contest as like a cattle market, where the participants are weighed and measured by the public before being valued.
Sally–a student of History Department in University College London meets Jo Robinson–a street artist and women’s liberation activist. Although both of them have different ways of struggle, they overcome their methods, and together with other feminist activists from various streams agree to create a disruption in Miss World 1970. This disruption aims to attract the attention of the public, through publicity in media.
Misbehaviour depicts connection between Miss World contests as a big entertainment business and support to American intervention in Vietnam. In the beginning scene, it shows documentation of Bob Hope–a British-American Stand-up Comedian, threw a sexist joke in front of American soldiers in Vietnam. He also invited the Miss World 1969 from Vienna, Austria to entertain the soldiers.
This film offers cut to cut scenes from the personal life of Sally as a student and mother, an underground meeting of women’s liberation activist, the involvement of Eric Morley and Bob Hope in the entertainment business, to the quarantine of Miss World contestants. These scenes can be described as complex circumstances, such as, how Sally faced sexism in her university and at the same time, a complaint from her mother because she is too busy so she doesn’t have enough time to do domestic works; how diverse the variety of feminist movements; how the Miss World contest treat their participants like an object that is measured based on their physical appearance; how discrimination of black women happen in Miss World contest; and also how the girls of Miss World feel precarious and compete for each other to attain the winner position.
The first winner of Miss World 1970 is Jennifer Hosten, from Grenada. She is the first black woman who wins this contest. While, the second place is Pearl Jansen, from South Africa. Grenada recognizes her winning is meaningful for the black little girls who see her perform, especially on how they will see themself in the future.
As the tagline of this film “The Miss World 1970: The Launch of a revolution”, it reminds the audience that Miss World and any similar contests, like Miss Universe, Miss America, or Miss Teenager World, is oppression against women. Women are treated as an object or ornament, that can be showed up and exploited for the sake of capital accumulation. The contests also shape a frame of beauty standards, that is often triggered as body-shaming. The struggle of women’s liberation has started and remains ongoing.
(Misbehaviour, Trailer)
