Misbehaviour

In 1970, the Miss World competition took place in London, hosted by US comedy legend Bob Hope. At the time, Miss World was the most-watched TV show on the planet, with over 100 million viewers. Claiming that beauty competitions demeaned women, the newly formed Women’s Liberation Movement achieved overnight fame by invading the stage and disrupting the live broadcast of the competition. Not only that, when the show resumed, the result caused uproar: The winner was not the Swedish favourite, but Miss Grenada—the first black woman to be crowned Miss World. In a matter of hours, a global audience had witnessed tradition driven from the stage and the Western ideal of beauty turned on its head.