… Applaud a challenge to the status quo?
Opening the 1970 Miss World contest, the presenter Bob Hope was in particularly ebullient mood. “I’m very, very happy to be here at this cattle market … ” he leered to the tittering audience. “Moooooo!”
His enjoyment was short-lived; moments later, the clatter of a football rattle resounded around the Royal Albert Hall and the stage was invaded by outraged women protesters, hurling flour and stink bombs. They forced the obnoxious Hope to flee from the set and disrupted the BBC’s broadcast in what has come to be seen as a watershed moment for feminism.
“I watched the whole ceremony and it’s shocking, particularly the bit where the women all have to turn round to show their bottoms …” says Gugu Mbatha-Raw over lunch at a smart restaurant in London’s Marylebone. “It definitely makes you realise quite how far we’ve come.”
This particular Miss World contest is the subject of Mbatha-Raw’s thought-provoking new drama, , also starring Keira Knightley and Suki Waterhouse. She takes the role of Jennifer Hosten, who, as Miss Grenada, became the first black woman,” she admits, “but I’ve become more open-minded as to what that represents. I think it’s very easy now to look back and say, ‘Why would you do that? It’s so superficial.’ What’s interesting is that rebellion can often be a luxury.” For her research into the film, Mbatha-Raw visited Grenada to talk to Hosten. “She’s in her seventies now and she’s got such a regal presence, such posture, these bright, bright eyes — she’s very demure, quite proper but very centred.
