The real Misbehaviour on breaking the beauty mould
As Misbehaviour is released, the first ever non-white Miss World, Jennifer Hosten, talks to Hanna Flint about her historic moment being on the big screen
THE MISS WORLD pageant has endured more than its fair share of controversies since it began in 1951, but maybe no year more so than 1970, as new film Misbehaviour, out this week, reveals.
On the evening of 20 November, at the Royal Albert Hall, one Jennifer Hosten, aka Miss Grenada, was crowned Miss World, making her the first woman of colour to win the contest. It was the same year that the first black entrant, Pearl Jansen from South Africa, was invited to compete, just when apartheid was at its most fraught. To many, the event was one progressive step forward in the fight for racial equality.
Yet to the Women’s Liberation Movement, the beauty competition was two steps back for female empowerment, which is why activists flour-bombed the stage during the live broadcast of Jennifer’s win.
‘When they demonstrated, the thought occurred to some of us that the contest might not continue,’ Jennifer, now 72, tells Grazia – which she felt was a shame considering the struggle she’d gone through to be there in the first place.
In the 50 years since winning the Miss World crown, Jennifer has been married twice, had two children and five grandchildren, served as High Commissioner to Canada from Grenada and retrained as a psychotherapist with her own practice in Ontario, where she lives.
Now retired, her historic victory has finally been given the cinematic treatment – with Gugu Mbatha-raw playing her in Misbehaviour.
Jennifer was first approached by producer Suzanne Mackie in 2010. They had heard the former Miss World discuss her experience on Radio 4’s The Reunion, alongside the feminist activist who led the protest at the 1970 pageant, Sally Alexander, and other people involved in the event.
Before long, Jennifer was in contact with Gugu. At first, they corresponded via email, then Whatsapp, and soon enough the women were arranging to meet up in Grenada. ‘She said, “I really want to see where you grew up and just get a sense of
the place and you,”’ Jennifer says. The trip paid off for both. ‘I watched Gugu play my part and she was brilliant. I couldn’t believe how she’d imitated my accent to perfection.’
Jennifer recalls the struggle she and other BAME contestants faced to compete on an even playing field back in the ’70s. The press and the photographers barely spoke with the women of colour competing in Miss World, for instance.
But for contestants like Jennifer, the pageant was an opportunity for adventure and travel that is not often afforded to women in the countries they hail from – and to make a point. ‘Cultural diversity is what the world is about,’ says Jennifer, ‘and, if you have a Miss World contest, it’s an anomaly to think that every Miss World should be the European standard of beauty.’
She admits that she hadn’t appreciated the view of the second-wave feminists that the contest objectified and paraded women around like it was a cattle market until she actually competed herself. ‘We didn’t get into the deeper thought about what this really meant, beyond the fact we were selected to represent a country and wanting to do the best to get your country noticed,’ she says. ‘But, at the time, I said women deserve to have more opportunities and to not be judged just for their appearance.’
Watching the film was poignant. It may not be a completely accurate retelling of events (her sister Pommie doesn’t appear as a chaperone, for instance, or Miss Israel as her best friend) but Jennifer says it presents the emotional truth of the situation.
‘The movie comes to the position that women should unite more instead of being against each other because we are much stronger when we come together,’ she says. ‘If the women’s movement had found a way to speak with us then, they would have come across as less of the enemy.’ ‘Misbehaviour’ is in cinemas nationwide from 13 March