Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, this is part two of our episodes about
Speaker 1: Vanessa Williams and Miss America. If you haven't listened to
Speaker 1: part one, I recommend starting there.
Speaker 2: And I know Miss America.
Speaker 3: It's Vanessa Willy out of his face.
Speaker 1: Vanessa Williams upended more than sixty years of white beauty
Speaker 1: standards when she was crowned Miss America in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: making history as the first black pageant winner. But when
Speaker 1: a nude photo scandal forced her to cut her rain short,
Speaker 1: the public shaming was swift and relentless.
Speaker 2: Miss America. Vanessa Williams took off her clothes, and now
Speaker 2: she's being asked to give up her crown. Within seventy
Speaker 2: two hours.
Speaker 1: Racist hate mail was sent to her parents home. Derogatory
Speaker 1: graffiti was scrawled on shops in her hometown. She was
Speaker 1: characterized as a slut in the press. As one cultural
Speaker 1: historian put it, she became the pageant's own hester prynne.
Speaker 3: But Vanessa Williams didn't go away quietly.
Speaker 1: She would go on to make a staggering comeback, and
Speaker 1: of the publisher who released her nude photos, she vowed,
Speaker 1: I won't let that man destroy me. I'm Jessica Bennett
Speaker 1: and I'm Susie Vannacaram. This is in retrospect. For each week,
Speaker 1: we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped.
Speaker 4: Us and that we just can't stop thinking about today.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Vanessa Williams, who made history as the
Speaker 1: first Black Miss America, but whose win was overshadowed by
Speaker 1: a scandal that stripped her of her crown. We're also
Speaker 1: talking about Miss America, the beauty paget that, for more
Speaker 1: than a century sent a particular message about what womanhood
Speaker 1: was supposed to look like.
Speaker 3: Young, fin unmarried, and white.
Speaker 4: Jess Let's take a moment to recap where we ended
Speaker 4: part one. Yeah, so, Vanessa Williams has had this historic
Speaker 4: when as the first Black Miss America. She's almost made
Speaker 4: it through the year long term, and it's been a
Speaker 4: roller coaster. She's had these amazing opportunities, but she's also
Speaker 4: experienced some pretty explicit racist backlash.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And before her historic rate ends, Vanessa finds out that
Speaker 4: the porn magazine Penthouse is going to publish a bunch
Speaker 4: of nude photos she'd posed for as a model a
Speaker 4: few years before she entered the pageant. Right, And it's
Speaker 4: important to say that these nude photos were sold by
Speaker 4: the photographer without her permission.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, exactly, they're sold without her permission. And the
Speaker 1: photos are also with another woman in a lot of
Speaker 1: suggestive poses, which I'm saying only to note that there's
Speaker 1: this kind of homophobic undertone to the whole thing as well.
Speaker 1: And you know, Penthouse, the magazine, of course, really leans
Speaker 1: into the whole Miss America thing. One of the headlines
Speaker 1: is here she comes dot dot do.
Speaker 4: Of course, of course that's a he gat frame it.
Speaker 4: And so now we heard the clip at the top.
Speaker 4: The Miss America pageant is basically demanding she turn over
Speaker 4: her crown, and they've given her just seventy two hours
Speaker 4: to figure out what to do. But it doesn't really
Speaker 4: sound like she has options, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't really seem like she has many options.
Speaker 1: And so Vanessa and her family, and her publicist and
Speaker 1: her lawyer, they're all hunkered down in her childhood home
Speaker 1: in upstate New.
Speaker 3: York trying to figure out what to do.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, as you can imagine, the media is going crazy.
Speaker 5: I can imagine. I imagine they are going absolutely nuts.
Speaker 3: You know, this is the era of the tabloids.
Speaker 1: So the New York Daily News headline says miss America
Speaker 1: in Nudie picks. Some of the other headlines choice headlines
Speaker 1: Vanessa the dressa that was real terrible and mess America
Speaker 1: mess like mass yeah, and then another one there she
Speaker 1: is dot dot dot in the buck.
Speaker 4: Your heart really breaks for her, like this has to
Speaker 4: feel so awful. She's had this incredibly rough, overwhelming year,
Speaker 4: even though it's been exciting, to suddenly be exposed in
Speaker 4: this way must feel terrible.
Speaker 1: She actually, in her memoir describes it as feeling like
Speaker 1: she'd been raped, Like it felt so utterly violating, and
Speaker 1: she had no control over how the images appear or
Speaker 1: the fact that they did appear. And what was interesting, too,
Speaker 1: is that all of the press at this time is
Speaker 1: then like going and doing these men on the street
Speaker 1: interviews where they're just asking any old, random person what
Speaker 1: they think. And so there's this interesting clip that I
Speaker 1: kept hearing in recap segments of this kind of middle
Speaker 1: aged white lady pontificating on what she has done and
Speaker 1: what it means for black people.
Speaker 5: I felt that she, you know, she had the opportunity
Speaker 5: to do something very good for black people, and she
Speaker 5: let them down.
Speaker 4: Thank you, white lady for telling us how black people
Speaker 4: feel about Vanessa Williams. I'm sure black people felt some
Speaker 4: sympathy for her, at least some people did. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is not okay when someone releases pictures of you
Speaker 4: in this way.
Speaker 5: This is terrible.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's interesting too, because this, of course is
Speaker 1: before the time that we understood what that meant. We
Speaker 1: say now, like she didn't consent to the photos, but
Speaker 1: people weren't using that language then. But one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things that happens is that at this time she
Speaker 1: had done this whole cover shoot for Essence magazine and
Speaker 1: they had this big piece coming out about her. It
Speaker 1: was really celebratory of her, and when the editor got
Speaker 1: the news, it was too late to pull her from
Speaker 1: the cover. So there she was in all of these
Speaker 1: negative headlines, and she's also on the cover of Essence,
Speaker 1: which interestingly actually boosted Essences sales because of course it
Speaker 1: was now this scandal, but it also hurt their subscriptions
Speaker 1: because readers thought they were condoning these photos.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course, not surprisingly, when Penthouse actually does
Speaker 1: publish the images soon After Vanessa is given this kind
Speaker 1: of heads up, sales for that magazine go absolutely wild.
Speaker 2: While the photos may have ended her reign, they have
Speaker 2: not hurt sales of the magazine they were pooming.
Speaker 1: Penhouse, by the way, we should note, is an explicit magazine,
Speaker 1: like much more so than Playboy. Playboy is considered in
Speaker 1: this genre, like the tasteful one of the tour, and
Speaker 1: over time that issue of Penhouse would become the best
Speaker 1: selling issue of all time, earning twenty four million dollars,
Speaker 1: none of which Vanessa Williams gets, of course, not that
Speaker 1: she would want it. It's interesting because at this time
Speaker 1: Penthouse this is like kind of its mo o. They
Speaker 1: had done something similar to Suzanne Summers.
Speaker 3: A couple of years earlier.
Speaker 1: They would do this to Madonna a year later, and
Speaker 1: then somewhat famously, they did this to Pamela Anderson, where
Speaker 1: they would buy these photos from whoever had them or
Speaker 1: leaked to them, and it didn't matter whether the person
Speaker 1: who was in the photo had any say in it
Speaker 1: or wanted them to appear.
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, I remember we talked about that during
Speaker 4: the Pamela Anderson episode. Okay, so they basically are creeps.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's going to be my takeaway from this.
Speaker 4: So this magazine hits the newsstands, what comes next?
Speaker 1: As you know, the pageant is pushing for her to resign,
Speaker 1: and Al Marx, who is the head of the Miss
Speaker 1: America organization at this time, says, quote, she knows that
Speaker 1: the photographs are totally inconsistent with the Miss America image.
Speaker 1: I mean sure, And then he goes on to say,
Speaker 1: as a man, as a father, as a grandfather, as
Speaker 1: a human being, I've never seen anything like these photos.
Speaker 1: I can't even show them to my wife.
Speaker 5: I mean, why is she showing penhouse to his wife? Like,
Speaker 5: don't do that then?
Speaker 3: Or maybe do do that anyway.
Speaker 1: But let me just say for those wondering, because I
Speaker 1: feel like if I were listening, I would be wondering
Speaker 1: what is actually in the photos? They are extremely sexually suggestive,
Speaker 1: like she's simulating sex acts with this other model. There
Speaker 1: is full frontal. You can really imagine how mortifying this
Speaker 1: is for her.
Speaker 5: I really feel for her. So how did her parents react?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can just imagine having to tell
Speaker 1: your parents this is occurring. But her parents were actually
Speaker 1: supportive and were in fact really opposed to her resigning.
Speaker 1: Her father told the Post at the time, our feeling
Speaker 1: is that she should continue with it. We feel she's
Speaker 1: earned it. We feel it could be seen as an
Speaker 1: admission of guilt of having done something that was wrong
Speaker 1: and distasteful, and we don't feel that she did.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's honestly, really nice.
Speaker 4: It's good that she had supportive parents who really held
Speaker 4: her up during this, because you know, in a lot
Speaker 4: of cases, people's parents aren't misunderstanding.
Speaker 5: So I like that for her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there were people who supported her through this too.
Speaker 1: I mean, once somebody becomes an underdog, sometimes peo will
Speaker 1: come out of the woodwork in support.
Speaker 3: So there were.
Speaker 1: Those who took to the streets with signs that said
Speaker 1: things like long Live the Queen and boycott Penthouse and
Speaker 1: were protesting the magazine and really did stand by her.
Speaker 5: Bow wait Bonga way.
Speaker 1: Finally, after her seventy two hours are up, Vanessa Williams
Speaker 1: holds a press conference to address the question of her resignation.
Speaker 6: I would like to start and everyone here, good afternoon,
Speaker 6: ladies and gentlemen of the press, and thank you for
Speaker 6: your attendance today.
Speaker 1: So she reads from a paper of her prepared remarks,
Speaker 1: this is a packed room. It's happening in Manhattan. You
Speaker 1: can see that she is charismatic even in the face
Speaker 1: of these charges. Her voice is clear and calm. She
Speaker 1: manages to smile and make eye contact.
Speaker 6: As you all know, the Miss America passion is asked
Speaker 6: for me to resign as Miss America nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Now with the time for my response.
Speaker 1: First, she addresses how the photos came to be. So
Speaker 1: it's nineteen eighty two, she's a freshman in college. She
Speaker 1: replies to a model's wanted classify mad and when she
Speaker 1: goes in, the photographer who's hiring is basically like, look,
Speaker 1: if you want to be a model, you need a portfolio,
Speaker 1: so I can help you with that. And so the
Speaker 1: photographer offers her a summer job as his receptionist and
Speaker 1: makeup artist. She had some experience in that, and she
Speaker 1: says they had a mostly normal working relationship, but then
Speaker 1: he would frequently ask if she wanted to pose nude,
Speaker 1: and eventually she.
Speaker 7: Agrees, based on his persistence and encouragement that I would
Speaker 7: be a good subject and his assurance that the photographs
Speaker 7: would just be for me to see.
Speaker 3: I was ultimately persuaded to do a session.
Speaker 1: So first they do like an artsy nude shoot in
Speaker 1: a forest. These photos are never lead. Then a week
Speaker 1: later he asks her if she wants to do another
Speaker 1: nude shoot, and this time it's with another woman. The
Speaker 1: poses in the nude shoot look like they're meant to
Speaker 1: be simulating sex.
Speaker 3: Each pose was set up.
Speaker 6: At no time was there any spontaneous or ongoing activity
Speaker 6: between myself and the other model.
Speaker 1: One thing I want to note here is that she
Speaker 1: does tell people later on, I know these photos look incriminating,
Speaker 1: but believe me, there was no lesbian activity that in
Speaker 1: of itself we could unpractic.
Speaker 3: But that's what she says.
Speaker 1: And he promised her that these would be silhouette style photos,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't be able to see her face. He
Speaker 1: promises that he will not publish them. He lied, obviously.
Speaker 6: After viewing the photos, I was enraged and I felt
Speaker 6: a deep sense of personal embarrassment. It is one thing
Speaker 6: to face up to a mistake that one makes a youth,
Speaker 6: but he is almost totally devastating to have to share
Speaker 6: it with the American public and the world at large,
Speaker 6: as both a human being and as miss and earth.
Speaker 1: She then goes on to thank her family, friends and
Speaker 1: all of those who've come to her defense in what
Speaker 1: she describes as the most difficult time in my young life,
Speaker 1: and then she says.
Speaker 6: Therefore, I do officially relinquish my title as Miss America.
Speaker 5: In nineteen eighty four, to the Miss America pageant.
Speaker 2: Good Evening, Miss America, Vanessa Williams has lost her crown.
Speaker 5: NESSA. Williams yielded her crown. That's the glamor of pageant, Demanda.
Speaker 2: He was stripped of her crown, that apparently being the
Speaker 2: only thing she had not previously doffed voluntarily.
Speaker 4: Jess, I'm curious did she have to resign? Are there
Speaker 4: actually rules in the pageants that she had violated?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's interesting technically not.
Speaker 1: But she had signed a contract swearing to quote good
Speaker 1: moral character, so that kind of leaves it to Miss
Speaker 1: America to decide what good moral character it is. And
Speaker 1: then she had also pledged that she had not engaged
Speaker 1: in what they describe as acts of moral turpitude, So
Speaker 1: the contract doesn't define moral turpitude or good moral character.
Speaker 1: But I think that you can make the assumption that
Speaker 1: they didn't think this was appropriate.
Speaker 4: I'm embarrassed to admit that I do not know what
Speaker 4: turpeitude means.
Speaker 3: That's so funny.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking of the same thing. What is moralude?
Speaker 1: So clearly we need to google that. But I feel
Speaker 1: like we get the gest right.
Speaker 5: We get the idea. We get the idea.
Speaker 4: So now she's resigned, does she go away quietly or
Speaker 4: then what?
Speaker 1: First off, she vows to keep fighting, which I think
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. There's this famous interview she gives to
Speaker 1: People magazine shortly after all this happens in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: four that she starts by saying, I'm going to fight
Speaker 1: if it takes my last dime.
Speaker 3: I'm fighting for my life and for the people I've
Speaker 3: let down.
Speaker 1: Good for her, yeah, it is good for her and
Speaker 1: to be able to say that, like she's not just
Speaker 1: backing away quietly. But one of the things that is
Speaker 1: so sad in the same interview is that she talks
Speaker 1: about how she feels like she hasn't just let women down,
Speaker 1: but she's let the whole black community down. And she
Speaker 1: goes on to say, you know, I made a terrible
Speaker 1: error in judgment. I know I'll have to pay for
Speaker 1: it as long as I live. And then there's this line,
Speaker 1: which I feel like is one of these lines I've
Speaker 1: heard repeated and is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: wanted to revisit this story where she says, but I
Speaker 1: am not a lesbian and I am not a slut,
Speaker 1: and somehow I'm going to make people believe me.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can understand why she felt the need
Speaker 4: to say that, but it's depressing because there's so many
Speaker 4: layers of ingrained homophobia and like shame around sex in
Speaker 4: that and you know, it makes sense she's a product
Speaker 4: of her time.
Speaker 5: But now we would be clear that there's.
Speaker 4: Nothing wrong with being a lesbian, and frankly, there's something
Speaker 4: wrong with being a slut, like your body, your choice.
Speaker 4: What happens to the title, because you know, it's pretty
Speaker 4: close to the end of the term, right, good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, you would think that they could just wait
Speaker 1: until the following year, but they actually promote or whatever
Speaker 1: the word is. In Miss America Land, her first runner up,
Speaker 1: who is this woman? Sus that Charles also a black woman,
Speaker 1: she assumes the throne and when she does, she says
Speaker 1: she would represent quote the wholesome American image. So really,
Speaker 1: putting herself in contrast to what people were perceiving.
Speaker 3: Fanessa, I don't like to.
Speaker 5: See that, Charles. I feel like she's being rud to
Speaker 5: Vanessa with this little comment.
Speaker 3: I mean, it does seem that way.
Speaker 1: And then the pageant allows Vanessa to keep the scholarship money,
Speaker 1: but she does lose a bunch of money and endorsement deals,
Speaker 1: like that's a product of being Miss America. All of
Speaker 1: these companies partner with you, you do endorsements, and so
Speaker 1: she loses that money. She ultimately ends up suing the
Speaker 1: magazine and the photographer, but they argue that she had
Speaker 1: signed waivers allowing them to use the photos.
Speaker 3: Vanessa says that's not the case.
Speaker 1: But basically what happens is her lawyers warn her that
Speaker 1: her life and her sexual life if she goes through
Speaker 1: with this suit, would be put so firmly under the microscope,
Speaker 1: either in discovery or in deposition.
Speaker 3: And so she drops the suit.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, as all of this is going down, it
Speaker 1: turns out this is great for Miss America the pageant.
Speaker 1: They gain renewed interest. In nineteen eighty four, ticket sales
Speaker 1: jumped by twenty percent, viewership briefly leaps back to seventy
Speaker 1: four million, like they're thriving or in the wake of
Speaker 1: this scandal.
Speaker 3: There's nothing like a scandal to resurrect, righting suit.
Speaker 1: Then you may think we're getting to the end of
Speaker 1: the bad parts of the story, but it's not actually
Speaker 1: over yet, because what happens is that more nude photos
Speaker 1: come to go and again Penthouse Princess, poor girl.
Speaker 3: I know, I know.
Speaker 1: And basically this is from a shoot from around the
Speaker 1: same time, and this is a different photographer, another supposed
Speaker 1: fashion photographer, And the scandal this time is that it
Speaker 1: was kind of an S and M esque shoot. Vanessa
Speaker 1: is in like a leather harness and handcuffs and the
Speaker 1: photos are published in the January nineteen eighty five edition
Speaker 1: of Penthouse.
Speaker 4: And this time she thought she had all the negatives right,
Speaker 4: she had actually like made the effort to get the
Speaker 4: negatives of these photos.
Speaker 1: Yes, so in this case she has talked about how
Speaker 1: she was really uncomfortable midshoot, like she knew that she
Speaker 1: felt uncomfortable. She cut the shoot short and she went
Speaker 1: back a week later, I think with her boyfriend at
Speaker 1: the time to get all of the negatives or so
Speaker 1: she thought. It's interesting too, because all of this kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of these stories that have come out
Speaker 1: more recently about like Terry Richardson and all of these
Speaker 1: quote unquote fashion photographers who are men who co were
Speaker 1: some models.
Speaker 5: I was just thinking about that.
Speaker 4: I think if you were not around for this era,
Speaker 4: some of these stories may seem strange, like why did
Speaker 4: she agree to do these things? But the reality is,
Speaker 4: if you were a model coming up in the eighties,
Speaker 4: you were asked to do these shoots, and if you
Speaker 4: didn't do them, you were considered prude and sometimes dinged
Speaker 4: in your career.
Speaker 5: So it was kind of an impossible choice.
Speaker 4: Like you needed to show that you were game and
Speaker 4: you were playful and you were willing to take risks.
Speaker 5: And so I'm sure she felt like she had to
Speaker 5: do this.
Speaker 1: She felt well, and she's so young, I mean, like
Speaker 1: she's a teenager, so what better does she.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she is so young.
Speaker 4: It's always easy to forget when we're talking about these
Speaker 4: stories that these are nineteen twenty twenty one year old
Speaker 4: girls usually, so is she really demoralized at this point?
Speaker 1: She's so strong, she's actually steadfast even as the second hit,
Speaker 1: the second terrible thing comes she's going to keep fighting.
Speaker 1: In that People magazine article I mentioned, she says of
Speaker 1: the head of Penthouse Magazine, and one thing you can
Speaker 1: be sure.
Speaker 3: Of, I won't let that man destroy me. And she doesn't.
Speaker 1: She is adamant that she's going to fight for the
Speaker 1: bigger dream for her, which always was to be in
Speaker 1: the entertainment business, to be a singer and actress.
Speaker 8: I feel at this time I should expand my energies
Speaker 8: and launching what I hope will be a successful career
Speaker 8: in the entertainment business. I feel my new career will
Speaker 8: be the greatest challenge in my life.
Speaker 4: This episode makes me love Vanessa Williams more and more,
Speaker 4: like really inspiring that she did not just crawl away
Speaker 4: like they wanted her to and hide.
Speaker 1: And she does end up taking some time away from
Speaker 1: the spotlight. Probably smart, But what happens is she makes
Speaker 1: one of the greatest comebacks in entertainment history.
Speaker 3: No so yeah, I mean, we recognize that song.
Speaker 1: Vanessa Williams goes on to have a very successful career
Speaker 1: as a Laddies pop star. Her debut album drops in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. It has multiple singles on the Billboard charts,
Speaker 1: and then She goes on to receive eleven Grammy nominations.
Speaker 1: She enters stage and film, she becomes a television act like,
Speaker 1: she's nominated for four Emmys and Tony all sorts of accolades,
Speaker 1: really really successful. She performs a song in Pocahontas, which
Speaker 1: then ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Speaker 4: I just want to say that it's kind of amazing
Speaker 4: that she went from being dethroned to appearing in a
Speaker 4: Disney movie like I am right, No, it really is
Speaker 4: totally turned things around.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to think about what allows someone to
Speaker 1: move past a thing that happened in this era where
Speaker 1: we didn't let women move past things, and what doesn't
Speaker 1: and like, what are the small differences that allowed her
Speaker 1: to seemingly really move on from this and become like
Speaker 1: a huge star on Ugly Betty.
Speaker 3: I remember loving her character willem.
Speaker 4: Oh, Yes, I loved Ugly Betty even if I wanted
Speaker 4: to express simply I physically can't so good.
Speaker 1: And you know, if it isn't already clear, Vanessa really
Speaker 1: is a multifaceted talent. You know, she's on Broadway, she
Speaker 1: does mainstream TV. She's a singer, she has.
Speaker 3: Gone on to write books.
Speaker 1: She really is doing everything that she set out to
Speaker 1: do and said she would.
Speaker 4: And I think it's partially just who she is, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, she is someone who refuses to be torn down.
Speaker 4: I mean there is something really amazing about that.
Speaker 1: And actually she kind of acknowledges that later, like in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six she gets a Career Achievement prize and
Speaker 1: she says in her speech, I knew once the deat settled,
Speaker 1: I would ultimately get the chance to do what I
Speaker 1: do best.
Speaker 3: And she really she did.
Speaker 5: Yes, Vanessa William's hero.
Speaker 3: Also, who needs Miss America anyway?
Speaker 4: Yeah, she really didn't need Miss America. In fact, she
Speaker 4: rose from those ashes and was able to never look back, right.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, kind of, except that she does go back
Speaker 1: many years later, basically as Vanessa's career rises, Miss America's
Speaker 1: currency stock whatever you want to call it, plat interest,
Speaker 1: not surprisingly recently, thirty two years after her crowning and
Speaker 1: dethroning in twenty fifteen, Miss America actually invites her back
Speaker 1: to be a judge.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, that's isn't that sunny? So funny? And
Speaker 5: also that must have felt so good.
Speaker 3: I wonder what was going through her mind when she
Speaker 3: was deciding whether or not.
Speaker 1: To accept right, And actually it ended up causing like
Speaker 1: its own mini scandal because the question was whether she
Speaker 1: would apologize to them no, or if the organization would
Speaker 1: apologize to her.
Speaker 3: I'm like how that would play out.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: When she does finally get up on stage at the
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen pageant, it must have been so validating. Sam Haskell,
Speaker 1: who then was the pageant's CEO, apologizes to her and
Speaker 1: to her mother, who is in the audience.
Speaker 9: You have lived your life in grace and dignity, and
Speaker 9: never was it more evident than during the events of
Speaker 9: nineteen eighty four when you resigned. Though none of us
Speaker 9: currently in the organization were involved in on behalf of
Speaker 9: today's organization, I want to apologize to you.
Speaker 3: And to your mother, Miss Helen Williams. I really am
Speaker 3: so happy right now.
Speaker 5: I love it. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1: About this, and I love it like the ultimate vindication
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 10: Yes, she gets her revenge.
Speaker 5: So you've been to Miss America?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: Was that the year you went?
Speaker 3: Yes, I have been to Miss America.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 1: It was Actually it's one of the most fun things
Speaker 1: I've met I've remembered I would go. Sometimes you just
Speaker 1: get to go on a reporting trip, but it's like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is why I do this, And Miss America was
Speaker 1: that for me.
Speaker 5: Yes, I love a weird reporting trip.
Speaker 3: It was not the year that Vanessa Lyms came back.
Speaker 1: It was a couple of years later, but it was
Speaker 1: interesting because so she appears, and then a year or
Speaker 1: so later is when the me too movement begins, and
Speaker 1: so by the time I'm going is when this really
Speaker 1: complex conversation is happening in the culture about what is
Speaker 1: appropriate and what is appropriate when it comes to even
Speaker 1: something as seemingly silly as a beauty path. There's all
Speaker 1: this discussion around whether beauty pageants should exist at all,
Speaker 1: if swimsuits should be allowed. Is that objectification? And then
Speaker 1: actually that year that I went, Gretchen Carlson, she is
Speaker 1: the woman who successfully sued Fox News for sexual harassment
Speaker 1: the former newscast, and also America had taken over for
Speaker 1: that guy I mentioned earlier, Sam Haskell, who had gotten
Speaker 1: in trouble for sending lude emails about the contestants Natchurally,
Speaker 1: but of course.
Speaker 4: There's always a bad man somewhere in the shadows whenever
Speaker 4: we're talking about anything.
Speaker 5: So, what was it, like?
Speaker 3: Tell me everything. It's on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.
Speaker 1: It's in this huge stadium, and I'm kind of expecting
Speaker 1: it to be glitzy and glam and it is not that.
Speaker 1: It's pretty dark, like literally dark, and also feels kind
Speaker 1: of dark.
Speaker 3: There's not very many people there.
Speaker 1: At one point, I'm sort of poking around trying to
Speaker 1: get a sense of the place, and I go down
Speaker 1: this long hallway that's sort of the backstage area of
Speaker 1: any stadium, and I come across the actual office to
Speaker 1: the Miss America headquarters and it has like a sad
Speaker 1: piece of paper identifying itself. It's like this dark, dingy
Speaker 1: office with like gray, kind of dirty carpets. It's all
Speaker 1: pretty run down, and Atlantic City has had financial trouble
Speaker 1: and is pretty run down too, So they were so
Speaker 1: desperate for people to come to the event itself that
Speaker 1: people were handing out flyers to like random passerbys on
Speaker 1: the street to go for free.
Speaker 3: Tickets to fill empty seats.
Speaker 1: And the flyers said, all you need to do is
Speaker 1: get dressed up really nice and show up to board wall.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's time has passed.
Speaker 4: Like I think it might be time to accept that
Speaker 4: Miss America's time has passed.
Speaker 1: It really is right, and so I mean, and that
Speaker 1: was really why I was there in the first place.
Speaker 1: It was like they were attempting to rebrand for the
Speaker 1: modern era.
Speaker 3: And so what did that mean?
Speaker 1: Well, for starters, there was a lot of linguistic terminology
Speaker 1: change happening. So it was no longer being called a
Speaker 1: pageant this year, it was being called a competition. The
Speaker 1: participants were no longer participants or contestants. They were candidates
Speaker 1: run running for office, yes, and they were interviewing for
Speaker 1: the job of I was really framed as a job.
Speaker 4: I'm always interviewing with vasilin on my teeth and like
Speaker 4: a see exactly.
Speaker 1: They had gotten rid of the runway and the word
Speaker 1: miss had actually been stripped from the sashes, so normally
Speaker 1: it's like Miss Washington, miss New York, so it would
Speaker 1: just say New York. But each sash did also still
Speaker 1: have a little pocket for your lipstick.
Speaker 5: Go oh, I never knew that sashes had that. That's
Speaker 5: actually very functional.
Speaker 1: And then of course, as I mentioned, there were no
Speaker 1: swimsuits like that was really the big change, And so
Speaker 1: when Gretchen Carlson, who was then the head of the organization,
Speaker 1: would talk about it, she'd be like, this is a
Speaker 1: place where we can highlight diverse and inclusive and empowered
Speaker 1: candidates and leaders.
Speaker 3: They're beautiful inside and that.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh this, Yes, they're beautiful inside and out.
Speaker 5: But we're still gonna pick the most beautiful.
Speaker 3: Right though, I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like I went in with a
Speaker 1: lot of stereotypes about Miss America, many of which we
Speaker 1: have probably expressed here thiscast.
Speaker 3: But these women were really impressive, I must say.
Speaker 1: And they were impressive not just because they were literal neuroscientists.
Speaker 1: They were like Harvard software developers who work for Microsoft,
Speaker 1: woman who worked in STEM. One of them had started
Speaker 1: a cancer organization. They talked about growing up with incarcerated parents,
Speaker 1: and had developed nonprofit organizations to deal with campus sexual assault,
Speaker 1: like all of those really impressive things. But then on
Speaker 1: top of that, they could like dance and do ventriloquism and.
Speaker 3: Play the harmonicas isn't one of the talents you mentioned clogging?
Speaker 5: Do some of them do clog?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yes, I have some amazing videos from
Speaker 1: this that I wish we could show. But yes, there
Speaker 1: was a clogging episode. There was like one, there was one.
Speaker 3: How do I even just guess?
Speaker 1: It was like an interpretive dance with a ghost. That
Speaker 1: does not clarify anything I was performing with a ghost.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it was all just incredible.
Speaker 5: I also feel like the only reason I know about baton.
Speaker 4: Twirling is pageants, Like I'm always envisioning someone up there
Speaker 4: with the baton. I mean, it is really interesting that
Speaker 4: such fascinating women are choosing to do this. Is it
Speaker 4: for the scholarship money? Like, it's interesting that these women
Speaker 4: who are going to Harvard or are neuroscientists are drawn
Speaker 4: to this still in some way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of them are doing
Speaker 1: it for the scholarship money and for visibility for their
Speaker 1: like nonprofit organizations to cure insert specific kind of cancer
Speaker 1: or other bad things. They really were very mission driven,
Speaker 1: really fascinating, and I don't know, you know, maybe all
Speaker 1: of these women had really interesting paths and they just
Speaker 1: weren't able to express them during the time when Miss
Speaker 1: America was popular, or maybe they've gone out of their
Speaker 1: way to work people who have interesting paths. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but what appeared to be much more progressive or what
Speaker 1: they were aiming to have be much more progressive on
Speaker 1: the outside was having a full fledged, as one woman
Speaker 1: described it to me, civil war.
Speaker 5: Oh on the inside.
Speaker 1: All right, So if you were to imagine going into
Speaker 1: a conference room in this giant stadium where all of
Speaker 1: these state and local enthusiasts, like really strong enthusiasts who
Speaker 1: have a lot of feelings about As America were gathering
Speaker 1: to essentially try to stage a coup to overthrow the president.
Speaker 3: They were trying to overthrow Gretchen Carlson.
Speaker 1: I think it was just a culture war happening on
Speaker 1: a micro level inside this organization.
Speaker 3: Like they did not want it to choose.
Speaker 1: There was like a real division about whether they wanted
Speaker 1: it to change or not, whether she was the right
Speaker 1: leader for it. In the week leading after the pageant,
Speaker 1: they were like posters hung around town in Atlantic City
Speaker 1: with giant letters calling Gretchen Carlson so fake amazing, It's
Speaker 1: like fully.
Speaker 5: Midol, I love a dark underbelly. I like it.
Speaker 1: There was a blue sash with the words Gretchen sucks
Speaker 1: that was placed on this statue of Miss America that's
Speaker 1: perched outside the hall because it's been taking place here
Speaker 1: for so many years, so people would go and pose
Speaker 1: in front of that statue and like it would have
Speaker 1: the sash on it.
Speaker 4: I just want to say that I would watch a
Speaker 4: scripted series about the war inside Miss America, because.
Speaker 5: I bet you it would be hilario.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe we need to do that.
Speaker 5: I'm in let's do it.
Speaker 1: I wish I had recordings that we could play. But
Speaker 1: basically I snuck into this secret meeting of the local
Speaker 1: leaders where they were plotting this over through. Okay, but
Speaker 1: it was so interesting because it was happening at the
Speaker 1: same time that Miss America was just grasping for relevance,
Speaker 1: and at this time, viewership was basically at an all
Speaker 1: time low. They've tried moving in to different stations, They've
Speaker 1: tried all these different th but like nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: watch Miss America. They couldn't even fill the little seats
Speaker 1: in the stadium we were in, and so I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it was a bit of a last gas, but
Speaker 1: I just happened to be lucky enough to wear Miss It.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do feel like that's lucky. I wish I
Speaker 4: had been there with you. I can't believe you didn't
Speaker 4: invite me.
Speaker 5: So where is Miss America today? Is it totally off
Speaker 5: the air now?
Speaker 1: So I'm sure if you were to ask Miss America
Speaker 1: enthusiasts question, they would take something really different. But it's
Speaker 1: pretty much irrelevant. It's only live streamed on their website now.
Speaker 1: People are not watching it. It did not air on
Speaker 1: TV last year, and I'm not sure what the state
Speaker 1: of it is, and I don't think people are talking
Speaker 1: about it really.
Speaker 4: It sort of reminds me of when we talk about
Speaker 4: soap operas, like there's always going to be fans, There's
Speaker 4: always going to be people who feel a real connection,
Speaker 4: but there are just some things that don't maintain the
Speaker 4: same cultural.
Speaker 1: Relevance, even things with long interesting albeit problematic the word
Speaker 1: we yeah and don't like she's on the show. Histories
Speaker 1: sometimes have to get retired. But the good news here
Speaker 1: is Vanessa Williams does't Nameless America. She is way past that.
Speaker 1: She's thriving.
Speaker 5: I know Vanessa Williams thriving.
Speaker 4: That is the message of this podcast.
Speaker 5: What she been doing lately.
Speaker 1: So she has been a judge on RuPaul's Queen of
Speaker 1: the universe, which is the Drag Queen Singing Competition, which
Speaker 1: is very fun, very fun. She is in a Broadway show,
Speaker 1: a recent Broadway show called Potus, where she actually plays
Speaker 1: the first Lady.
Speaker 3: It's an all female cast.
Speaker 1: It was described as I haven't seen it, but like
Speaker 1: bride'smaids in the White House are trying to keep the
Speaker 1: president alive.
Speaker 3: It sounds very fun.
Speaker 1: And she recently turned sixty and as she told Jennifer
Speaker 1: Hudson on her talk show, there is a sense of ease.
Speaker 4: The older you get, the less you care about what
Speaker 4: everybody else has to say.
Speaker 5: This is the best. I love a comeback story.
Speaker 4: This has been one of my favorites, so I feel
Speaker 4: like this is a great place to end it.
Speaker 1: You know, as they put it in Miss Congeniality, she
Speaker 1: is beauty, she is grace, she is Miss United States.
Speaker 1: But I guess in this case miss America and also
Speaker 1: screw Miss America. Before we go, I wanted to give
Speaker 1: a quick shout out to two authors whose books were instrumental.
Speaker 3: In our research of this episode.
Speaker 1: The first is Margot Mifflin, whose book is Looking for
Speaker 1: Miss America, a Pageant's one hundred year quest to define Womanhood,
Speaker 1: and the second is Amy Argetsinger, whose book is There
Speaker 1: She Was The Secret History of Miss America. They're both
Speaker 1: fascinating reads and you can find links to them in
Speaker 1: our show notes.
Speaker 4: So, jess we talked about some fun reporting you did
Speaker 4: on Miss America in this episode that all week long
Speaker 4: you've been asking me about stories from my past. So
Speaker 4: next week we're going to reveal some fun behind the
Speaker 4: scenes experiences we've both had, right.
Speaker 1: Like the time you booke Jessica Simpson for Katie Couric show.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm finally going to talk about Jessica Simpson, which.
Speaker 5: I know you've been dying to hear about.
Speaker 3: I have, so tune in next week and you'll hear
Speaker 3: all about it.
Speaker 5: This is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
Speaker 4: about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Speaker 4: Email us at inretropod at gmail dot com or find
Speaker 4: us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
Speaker 1: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
Speaker 1: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
Speaker 1: which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
Speaker 4: and at suzib nyc. Also check out Jessica's books, Feminist,
Speaker 4: Fike Club, and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.
Speaker 1: Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
Speaker 1: engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Sharan
Speaker 1: Atia is our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 5: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy.
Speaker 4: Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 4: Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Speaker 4: Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
Speaker 4: your hosts Susie Bannacarum and Jessica Bennett.
Speaker 1: We are also executive producers for even more check out
Speaker 1: in retropod dot com.
Speaker 3: See you next week.