May 3, 2024 • 34 mins
She made history as the first Black Miss America, then dramatically lost her crown in a scandal that would see her branded as "the pageant's own Hester Prynn.” But Vanessa Williams did not just go away quietly, she fought back — going head to head with Penthouse, the magazine that published her photos, and the man who tricked her into taking them. In this episode, Jess and Susie chart the aftermath of that sordid episode, as well as Vanessa’s staggering comeback. Plus, Jess talks about the time she went to Miss America just a few years ago, reporting from inside the pageant, where a pageant “civil war” was brewing.
FOR MORE:
- Books: Looking for Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood, by Margot Mifflin, and There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America, by Amy Artsinger
- Articles: Goodbye, Swimsuit Competition. Hello, ‘Miss America 2.0.’ and Here’s What You Didn’t See on Miss America (both New York Times, both by Jess)
- Listen: Glamorous Trash, a Celebrity Book Club Podcast, in which Jess and Susie join host Chelsea Devantez to talk about Vanessa Williams’ memoir
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, this is part two of our episodes about
Vanessa Williams and Miss America. If you haven't listened to
part one, I recommend starting there.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I know Miss America.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
It's Vanessa Willy out of his face.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Vanessa Williams upended more than sixty years of white beauty
standards when she was crowned Miss America in nineteen eighty four,
making history as the first black pageant winner. But when
a nude photo scandal forced her to cut her rain short,
the public shaming was swift and relentless.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Miss America. Vanessa Williams took off her clothes, and now
she's being asked to give up her crown. Within seventy
two hours.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Racist hate mail was sent to her parents home. Derogatory
graffiti was scrawled on shops in her hometown. She was
characterized as a slut in the press. As one cultural
historian put it, she became the pageant's own hester prynne.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
But Vanessa Williams didn't go away quietly.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
She would go on to make a staggering comeback, and
of the publisher who released her nude photos, she vowed,
I won't let that man destroy me. I'm Jessica Bennett
and I'm Susie Vannacaram. This is in retrospect. For each week,
we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Us and that we just can't stop thinking about today.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
We're talking about Vanessa Williams, who made history as the
first Black Miss America, but whose win was overshadowed by
a scandal that stripped her of her crown. We're also
talking about Miss America, the beauty paget that, for more
than a century sent a particular message about what womanhood
was supposed to look like.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Young, fin unmarried, and white.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Jess Let's take a moment to recap where we ended
part one. Yeah, so, Vanessa Williams has had this historic
when as the first Black Miss America. She's almost made
it through the year long term, and it's been a
roller coaster. She's had these amazing opportunities, but she's also
experienced some pretty explicit racist backlash.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
And before her historic rate ends, Vanessa finds out that
the porn magazine Penthouse is going to publish a bunch
of nude photos she'd posed for as a model a
few years before she entered the pageant. Right, And it's
important to say that these nude photos were sold by
the photographer without her permission.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right, Yes, exactly, they're sold without her permission. And the
photos are also with another woman in a lot of
suggestive poses, which I'm saying only to note that there's
this kind of homophobic undertone to the whole thing as well.
And you know, Penthouse, the magazine, of course, really leans
into the whole Miss America thing. One of the headlines
is here she comes dot dot do.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Of course, of course that's a he gat frame it.
And so now we heard the clip at the top.
The Miss America pageant is basically demanding she turn over
her crown, and they've given her just seventy two hours
to figure out what to do. But it doesn't really
sound like she has options, right.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, it doesn't really seem like she has many options.
And so Vanessa and her family, and her publicist and
her lawyer, they're all hunkered down in her childhood home
in upstate New.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
York trying to figure out what to do.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And meanwhile, as you can imagine, the media is going crazy.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
I can imagine. I imagine they are going absolutely nuts.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
You know, this is the era of the tabloids.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So the New York Daily News headline says miss America
in Nudie picks. Some of the other headlines choice headlines
Vanessa the dressa that was real terrible and mess America
mess like mass yeah, and then another one there she
is dot dot dot in the buck.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Your heart really breaks for her, like this has to
feel so awful. She's had this incredibly rough, overwhelming year,
even though it's been exciting, to suddenly be exposed in
this way must feel terrible.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
She actually, in her memoir describes it as feeling like
she'd been raped, Like it felt so utterly violating, and
she had no control over how the images appear or
the fact that they did appear. And what was interesting, too,
is that all of the press at this time is
then like going and doing these men on the street
interviews where they're just asking any old, random person what
(04:10):
they think. And so there's this interesting clip that I
kept hearing in recap segments of this kind of middle
aged white lady pontificating on what she has done and
what it means for black people.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
I felt that she, you know, she had the opportunity
to do something very good for black people, and she
let them down.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Thank you, white lady for telling us how black people
feel about Vanessa Williams. I'm sure black people felt some
sympathy for her, at least some people did. I mean,
this is not okay when someone releases pictures of you
in this way.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
This is terrible.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, and it's interesting too, because this, of course is
before the time that we understood what that meant. We
say now, like she didn't consent to the photos, but
people weren't using that language then. But one of the
interesting things that happens is that at this time she
had done this whole cover shoot for Essence magazine and
they had this big piece coming out about her. It
was really celebratory of her, and when the editor got
(05:06):
the news, it was too late to pull her from
the cover. So there she was in all of these
negative headlines, and she's also on the cover of Essence,
which interestingly actually boosted Essences sales because of course it
was now this scandal, but it also hurt their subscriptions
because readers thought they were condoning these photos.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, And of course, not surprisingly, when Penthouse actually does
publish the images soon After Vanessa is given this kind
of heads up, sales for that magazine go absolutely wild.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
While the photos may have ended her reign, they have
not hurt sales of the magazine they were pooming.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Penhouse, by the way, we should note, is an explicit magazine,
like much more so than Playboy. Playboy is considered in
this genre, like the tasteful one of the tour, and
over time that issue of Penhouse would become the best
selling issue of all time, earning twenty four million dollars,
none of which Vanessa Williams gets, of course, not that
she would want it. It's interesting because at this time
(06:09):
Penthouse this is like kind of its mo o. They
had done something similar to Suzanne Summers.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
A couple of years earlier.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
They would do this to Madonna a year later, and
then somewhat famously, they did this to Pamela Anderson, where
they would buy these photos from whoever had them or
leaked to them, and it didn't matter whether the person
who was in the photo had any say in it
or wanted them to appear.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Oh that's right, I remember we talked about that during
the Pamela Anderson episode. Okay, so they basically are creeps.
I mean, that's going to be my takeaway from this.
So this magazine hits the newsstands, what comes next?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
As you know, the pageant is pushing for her to resign,
and Al Marx, who is the head of the Miss
America organization at this time, says, quote, she knows that
the photographs are totally inconsistent with the Miss America image.
I mean sure, And then he goes on to say,
as a man, as a father, as a grandfather, as
a human being, I've never seen anything like these photos.
(07:07):
I can't even show them to my wife.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
I mean, why is she showing penhouse to his wife? Like,
don't do that then?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Or maybe do do that anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
But let me just say for those wondering, because I
feel like if I were listening, I would be wondering
what is actually in the photos? They are extremely sexually suggestive,
like she's simulating sex acts with this other model. There
is full frontal. You can really imagine how mortifying this
is for her.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
I really feel for her. So how did her parents react?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, I mean you can just imagine having to tell
your parents this is occurring. But her parents were actually
supportive and were in fact really opposed to her resigning.
Her father told the Post at the time, our feeling
is that she should continue with it. We feel she's
earned it. We feel it could be seen as an
admission of guilt of having done something that was wrong
and distasteful, and we don't feel that she did.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I mean, that's honestly, really nice.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
It's good that she had supportive parents who really held
her up during this, because you know, in a lot
of cases, people's parents aren't misunderstanding.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
So I like that for her.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, And there were people who supported her through this too.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I mean, once somebody becomes an underdog, sometimes peo will
come out of the woodwork in support.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So there were.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Those who took to the streets with signs that said
things like long Live the Queen and boycott Penthouse and
were protesting the magazine and really did stand by her.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Bow wait Bonga way.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Finally, after her seventy two hours are up, Vanessa Williams
holds a press conference to address the question of her resignation.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
I would like to start and everyone here, good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen of the press, and thank you for
your attendance today.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So she reads from a paper of her prepared remarks,
this is a packed room. It's happening in Manhattan. You
can see that she is charismatic even in the face
of these charges. Her voice is clear and calm. She
manages to smile and make eye contact.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
As you all know, the Miss America passion is asked
for me to resign as Miss America nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Now with the time for my response.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
First, she addresses how the photos came to be. So
it's nineteen eighty two, she's a freshman in college. She
replies to a model's wanted classify mad and when she
goes in, the photographer who's hiring is basically like, look,
if you want to be a model, you need a portfolio,
so I can help you with that. And so the
photographer offers her a summer job as his receptionist and
(09:30):
makeup artist. She had some experience in that, and she
says they had a mostly normal working relationship, but then
he would frequently ask if she wanted to pose nude,
and eventually she.
Speaker 7 (09:41):
Agrees, based on his persistence and encouragement that I would
be a good subject and his assurance that the photographs
would just be for me to see.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I was ultimately persuaded to do a session.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So first they do like an artsy nude shoot in
a forest. These photos are never lead. Then a week
later he asks her if she wants to do another
nude shoot, and this time it's with another woman. The
poses in the nude shoot look like they're meant to
be simulating sex.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Each pose was set up.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
At no time was there any spontaneous or ongoing activity
between myself and the other model.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
One thing I want to note here is that she
does tell people later on, I know these photos look incriminating,
but believe me, there was no lesbian activity that in
of itself we could unpractic.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But that's what she says.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And he promised her that these would be silhouette style photos,
like you wouldn't be able to see her face. He
promises that he will not publish them. He lied, obviously.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
After viewing the photos, I was enraged and I felt
a deep sense of personal embarrassment. It is one thing
to face up to a mistake that one makes a youth,
but he is almost totally devastating to have to share
it with the American public and the world at large,
as both a human being and as miss and earth.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
She then goes on to thank her family, friends and
all of those who've come to her defense in what
she describes as the most difficult time in my young life,
and then she says.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
Therefore, I do officially relinquish my title as Miss America.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
In nineteen eighty four, to the Miss America pageant.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Good Evening, Miss America, Vanessa Williams has lost her crown.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
NESSA. Williams yielded her crown. That's the glamor of pageant, Demanda.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
He was stripped of her crown, that apparently being the
only thing she had not previously doffed voluntarily.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Jess, I'm curious did she have to resign? Are there
actually rules in the pageants that she had violated?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting technically not.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
But she had signed a contract swearing to quote good
moral character, so that kind of leaves it to Miss
America to decide what good moral character it is. And
then she had also pledged that she had not engaged
in what they describe as acts of moral turpitude, So
the contract doesn't define moral turpitude or good moral character.
But I think that you can make the assumption that
(12:19):
they didn't think this was appropriate.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
I'm embarrassed to admit that I do not know what
turpeitude means.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I was just thinking of the same thing. What is moralude?
So clearly we need to google that. But I feel
like we get the gest right.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
We get the idea. We get the idea.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
So now she's resigned, does she go away quietly or
then what?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
First off, she vows to keep fighting, which I think
is pretty interesting. There's this famous interview she gives to
People magazine shortly after all this happens in nineteen eighty
four that she starts by saying, I'm going to fight
if it takes my last dime.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I'm fighting for my life and for the people I've
let down.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Good for her, yeah, it is good for her and
to be able to say that, like she's not just
backing away quietly. But one of the things that is
so sad in the same interview is that she talks
about how she feels like she hasn't just let women down,
but she's let the whole black community down. And she
goes on to say, you know, I made a terrible
error in judgment. I know I'll have to pay for
it as long as I live. And then there's this line,
(13:19):
which I feel like is one of these lines I've
heard repeated and is one of the reasons why I
wanted to revisit this story where she says, but I
am not a lesbian and I am not a slut,
and somehow I'm going to make people believe me.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
I mean, you can understand why she felt the need
to say that, but it's depressing because there's so many
layers of ingrained homophobia and like shame around sex in
that and you know, it makes sense she's a product
of her time.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
But now we would be clear that there's.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Nothing wrong with being a lesbian, and frankly, there's something
wrong with being a slut, like your body, your choice.
What happens to the title, because you know, it's pretty
close to the end of the term, right, good question.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I mean, you would think that they could just wait
until the following year, but they actually promote or whatever
the word is. In Miss America Land, her first runner up,
who is this woman? Sus that Charles also a black woman,
she assumes the throne and when she does, she says
she would represent quote the wholesome American image. So really,
putting herself in contrast to what people were perceiving.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Fanessa, I don't like to.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
See that, Charles. I feel like she's being rud to
Vanessa with this little comment.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I mean, it does seem that way.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And then the pageant allows Vanessa to keep the scholarship money,
but she does lose a bunch of money and endorsement deals,
like that's a product of being Miss America. All of
these companies partner with you, you do endorsements, and so
she loses that money. She ultimately ends up suing the
magazine and the photographer, but they argue that she had
signed waivers allowing them to use the photos.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Vanessa says that's not the case.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
But basically what happens is her lawyers warn her that
her life and her sexual life if she goes through
with this suit, would be put so firmly under the microscope,
either in discovery or in deposition.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
And so she drops the suit.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But meanwhile, as all of this is going down, it
turns out this is great for Miss America the pageant.
They gain renewed interest. In nineteen eighty four, ticket sales
jumped by twenty percent, viewership briefly leaps back to seventy
four million, like they're thriving or in the wake of
this scandal.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
There's nothing like a scandal to resurrect, righting suit.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Then you may think we're getting to the end of
the bad parts of the story, but it's not actually
over yet, because what happens is that more nude photos
come to go and again Penthouse Princess, poor girl.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And basically this is from a shoot from around the
same time, and this is a different photographer, another supposed
fashion photographer, And the scandal this time is that it
was kind of an S and M esque shoot. Vanessa
is in like a leather harness and handcuffs and the
photos are published in the January nineteen eighty five edition
(16:04):
of Penthouse.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And this time she thought she had all the negatives right,
she had actually like made the effort to get the
negatives of these photos.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yes, so in this case she has talked about how
she was really uncomfortable midshoot, like she knew that she
felt uncomfortable. She cut the shoot short and she went
back a week later, I think with her boyfriend at
the time to get all of the negatives or so
she thought. It's interesting too, because all of this kind
of reminds me of these stories that have come out
more recently about like Terry Richardson and all of these
(16:32):
quote unquote fashion photographers who are men who co were
some models.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
I was just thinking about that.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
I think if you were not around for this era,
some of these stories may seem strange, like why did
she agree to do these things? But the reality is,
if you were a model coming up in the eighties,
you were asked to do these shoots, and if you
didn't do them, you were considered prude and sometimes dinged
in your career.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
So it was kind of an impossible choice.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Like you needed to show that you were game and
you were playful and you were willing to take risks.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
And so I'm sure she felt like she had to
do this.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
She felt well, and she's so young, I mean, like
she's a teenager, so what better does she.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
Yeah, she is so young.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
It's always easy to forget when we're talking about these
stories that these are nineteen twenty twenty one year old
girls usually, so is she really demoralized at this point?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
She's so strong, she's actually steadfast even as the second hit,
the second terrible thing comes she's going to keep fighting.
In that People magazine article I mentioned, she says of
the head of Penthouse Magazine, and one thing you can
be sure.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Of, I won't let that man destroy me. And she doesn't.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
She is adamant that she's going to fight for the
bigger dream for her, which always was to be in
the entertainment business, to be a singer and actress.
Speaker 8 (17:47):
I feel at this time I should expand my energies
and launching what I hope will be a successful career
in the entertainment business. I feel my new career will
be the greatest challenge in my life.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
This episode makes me love Vanessa Williams more and more,
like really inspiring that she did not just crawl away
like they wanted her to and hide.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And she does end up taking some time away from
the spotlight. Probably smart, But what happens is she makes
one of the greatest comebacks in entertainment history.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
No so yeah, I mean, we recognize that song.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Vanessa Williams goes on to have a very successful career
as a Laddies pop star. Her debut album drops in
nineteen eighty eight. It has multiple singles on the Billboard charts,
and then She goes on to receive eleven Grammy nominations.
She enters stage and film, she becomes a television act like,
she's nominated for four Emmys and Tony all sorts of accolades,
(18:47):
really really successful. She performs a song in Pocahontas, which
then ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
I just want to say that it's kind of amazing
that she went from being dethroned to appearing in a
Disney movie like I am right, No, it really is
totally turned things around.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's so interesting to think about what allows someone to
move past a thing that happened in this era where
we didn't let women move past things, and what doesn't
and like, what are the small differences that allowed her
to seemingly really move on from this and become like
a huge star on Ugly Betty.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
I remember loving her character willem.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh, Yes, I loved Ugly Betty even if I wanted
to express simply I physically can't so good.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
And you know, if it isn't already clear, Vanessa really
is a multifaceted talent. You know, she's on Broadway, she
does mainstream TV. She's a singer, she has.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Gone on to write books.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
She really is doing everything that she set out to
do and said she would.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
And I think it's partially just who she is, right,
I mean, she is someone who refuses to be torn down.
I mean there is something really amazing about that.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And actually she kind of acknowledges that later, like in
nineteen ninety six she gets a Career Achievement prize and
she says in her speech, I knew once the deat settled,
I would ultimately get the chance to do what I
do best.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
And she really she did.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Yes, Vanessa William's hero.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Also, who needs Miss America anyway?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, she really didn't need Miss America. In fact, she
rose from those ashes and was able to never look back, right.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Well, okay, kind of, except that she does go back
many years later, basically as Vanessa's career rises, Miss America's
currency stock whatever you want to call it, plat interest,
not surprisingly recently, thirty two years after her crowning and
dethroning in twenty fifteen, Miss America actually invites her back
(20:47):
to be a judge.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Oh my god, that's isn't that sunny? So funny? And
also that must have felt so good.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I wonder what was going through her mind when she
was deciding whether or not.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
To accept right, And actually it ended up causing like
its own mini scandal because the question was whether she
would apologize to them no, or if the organization would
apologize to her.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I'm like how that would play out.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
When she does finally get up on stage at the
twenty fifteen pageant, it must have been so validating. Sam Haskell,
who then was the pageant's CEO, apologizes to her and
to her mother, who is in the audience.
Speaker 9 (21:24):
You have lived your life in grace and dignity, and
never was it more evident than during the events of
nineteen eighty four when you resigned. Though none of us
currently in the organization were involved in on behalf of
today's organization, I want to apologize to you.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
And to your mother, Miss Helen Williams. I really am
so happy right now.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
I love it. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
About this, and I love it like the ultimate vindication
a little bit.
Speaker 10 (22:02):
Yes, she gets her revenge.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
So you've been to Miss America?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Right?
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Was that the year you went?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yes, I have been to Miss America.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
It was Actually it's one of the most fun things
I've met I've remembered I would go. Sometimes you just
get to go on a reporting trip, but it's like, ah,
this is why I do this, And Miss America was
that for me.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Yes, I love a weird reporting trip.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
It was not the year that Vanessa Lyms came back.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It was a couple of years later, but it was
interesting because so she appears, and then a year or
so later is when the me too movement begins, and
so by the time I'm going is when this really
complex conversation is happening in the culture about what is
appropriate and what is appropriate when it comes to even
(22:57):
something as seemingly silly as a beauty path. There's all
this discussion around whether beauty pageants should exist at all,
if swimsuits should be allowed. Is that objectification? And then
actually that year that I went, Gretchen Carlson, she is
the woman who successfully sued Fox News for sexual harassment
(23:17):
the former newscast, and also America had taken over for
that guy I mentioned earlier, Sam Haskell, who had gotten
in trouble for sending lude emails about the contestants Natchurally,
but of course.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
There's always a bad man somewhere in the shadows whenever
we're talking about anything.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
So, what was it, like?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Tell me everything. It's on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It's in this huge stadium, and I'm kind of expecting
it to be glitzy and glam and it is not that.
It's pretty dark, like literally dark, and also feels kind
of dark.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
There's not very many people there.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
At one point, I'm sort of poking around trying to
get a sense of the place, and I go down
this long hallway that's sort of the backstage area of
any stadium, and I come across the actual office to
the Miss America headquarters and it has like a sad
piece of paper identifying itself. It's like this dark, dingy
office with like gray, kind of dirty carpets. It's all
(24:16):
pretty run down, and Atlantic City has had financial trouble
and is pretty run down too, So they were so
desperate for people to come to the event itself that
people were handing out flyers to like random passerbys on
the street to go for free.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Tickets to fill empty seats.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And the flyers said, all you need to do is
get dressed up really nice and show up to board wall.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's time has passed.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Like I think it might be time to accept that
Miss America's time has passed.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
It really is right, and so I mean, and that
was really why I was there in the first place.
It was like they were attempting to rebrand for the
modern era.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And so what did that mean?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Well, for starters, there was a lot of linguistic terminology
change happening. So it was no longer being called a
pageant this year, it was being called a competition. The
participants were no longer participants or contestants. They were candidates
run running for office, yes, and they were interviewing for
the job of I was really framed as a job.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I'm always interviewing with vasilin on my teeth and like
a see exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
They had gotten rid of the runway and the word
miss had actually been stripped from the sashes, so normally
it's like Miss Washington, miss New York, so it would
just say New York. But each sash did also still
have a little pocket for your lipstick.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Go oh, I never knew that sashes had that. That's
actually very functional.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And then of course, as I mentioned, there were no
swimsuits like that was really the big change, And so
when Gretchen Carlson, who was then the head of the organization,
would talk about it, she'd be like, this is a
place where we can highlight diverse and inclusive and empowered
candidates and leaders.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
They're beautiful inside and that.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
I was like, oh this, Yes, they're beautiful inside and out.
But we're still gonna pick the most beautiful.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Right though, I do.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I mean, I feel like I went in with a
lot of stereotypes about Miss America, many of which we
have probably expressed here thiscast.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
But these women were really impressive, I must say.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And they were impressive not just because they were literal neuroscientists.
They were like Harvard software developers who work for Microsoft,
woman who worked in STEM. One of them had started
a cancer organization. They talked about growing up with incarcerated parents,
and had developed nonprofit organizations to deal with campus sexual assault,
(26:38):
like all of those really impressive things. But then on
top of that, they could like dance and do ventriloquism and.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Play the harmonicas isn't one of the talents you mentioned clogging?
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Do some of them do clog?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Oh my god, yes, I have some amazing videos from
this that I wish we could show. But yes, there
was a clogging episode. There was like one, there was one.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
How do I even just guess?
Speaker 1 (27:02):
It was like an interpretive dance with a ghost. That
does not clarify anything I was performing with a ghost.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
I don't know, but it was all just incredible.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
I also feel like the only reason I know about baton.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Twirling is pageants, Like I'm always envisioning someone up there
with the baton. I mean, it is really interesting that
such fascinating women are choosing to do this. Is it
for the scholarship money? Like, it's interesting that these women
who are going to Harvard or are neuroscientists are drawn
to this still in some way.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I mean, I think a lot of them are doing
it for the scholarship money and for visibility for their
like nonprofit organizations to cure insert specific kind of cancer
or other bad things. They really were very mission driven,
really fascinating, and I don't know, you know, maybe all
of these women had really interesting paths and they just
weren't able to express them during the time when Miss
(27:56):
America was popular, or maybe they've gone out of their
way to work people who have interesting paths. I don't know,
but what appeared to be much more progressive or what
they were aiming to have be much more progressive on
the outside was having a full fledged, as one woman
described it to me, civil war.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
Oh on the inside.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
All right, So if you were to imagine going into
a conference room in this giant stadium where all of
these state and local enthusiasts, like really strong enthusiasts who
have a lot of feelings about As America were gathering
to essentially try to stage a coup to overthrow the president.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
They were trying to overthrow Gretchen Carlson.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I think it was just a culture war happening on
a micro level inside this organization.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Like they did not want it to choose.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
There was like a real division about whether they wanted
it to change or not, whether she was the right
leader for it. In the week leading after the pageant,
they were like posters hung around town in Atlantic City
with giant letters calling Gretchen Carlson so fake amazing, It's
like fully.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Midol, I love a dark underbelly. I like it.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
There was a blue sash with the words Gretchen sucks
that was placed on this statue of Miss America that's
perched outside the hall because it's been taking place here
for so many years, so people would go and pose
in front of that statue and like it would have
the sash on it.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
I just want to say that I would watch a
scripted series about the war inside Miss America, because.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
I bet you it would be hilario.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I mean, maybe we need to do that.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
I'm in let's do it.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I wish I had recordings that we could play. But
basically I snuck into this secret meeting of the local
leaders where they were plotting this over through. Okay, but
it was so interesting because it was happening at the
same time that Miss America was just grasping for relevance,
and at this time, viewership was basically at an all
time low. They've tried moving in to different stations, They've
(29:59):
tried all these different th but like nobody wanted to
watch Miss America. They couldn't even fill the little seats
in the stadium we were in, and so I don't know,
maybe it was a bit of a last gas, but
I just happened to be lucky enough to wear Miss It.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, I do feel like that's lucky. I wish I
had been there with you. I can't believe you didn't
invite me.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
So where is Miss America today? Is it totally off
the air now?
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So I'm sure if you were to ask Miss America
enthusiasts question, they would take something really different. But it's
pretty much irrelevant. It's only live streamed on their website now.
People are not watching it. It did not air on
TV last year, and I'm not sure what the state
of it is, and I don't think people are talking
about it really.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
It sort of reminds me of when we talk about
soap operas, like there's always going to be fans, There's
always going to be people who feel a real connection,
but there are just some things that don't maintain the
same cultural.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Relevance, even things with long interesting albeit problematic the word
we yeah and don't like she's on the show. Histories
sometimes have to get retired. But the good news here
is Vanessa Williams does't Nameless America. She is way past that.
She's thriving.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
I know Vanessa Williams thriving.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
That is the message of this podcast.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
What she been doing lately.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So she has been a judge on RuPaul's Queen of
the universe, which is the Drag Queen Singing Competition, which
is very fun, very fun. She is in a Broadway show,
a recent Broadway show called Potus, where she actually plays
the first Lady.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
It's an all female cast.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
It was described as I haven't seen it, but like
bride'smaids in the White House are trying to keep the
president alive.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
It sounds very fun.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And she recently turned sixty and as she told Jennifer
Hudson on her talk show, there is a sense of ease.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The older you get, the less you care about what
everybody else has to say.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
This is the best. I love a comeback story.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
This has been one of my favorites, so I feel
like this is a great place to end it.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
You know, as they put it in Miss Congeniality, she
is beauty, she is grace, she is Miss United States.
But I guess in this case miss America and also
screw Miss America. Before we go, I wanted to give
a quick shout out to two authors whose books were instrumental.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
In our research of this episode.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The first is Margot Mifflin, whose book is Looking for
Miss America, a Pageant's one hundred year quest to define Womanhood,
and the second is Amy Argetsinger, whose book is There
She Was The Secret History of Miss America. They're both
fascinating reads and you can find links to them in
our show notes.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
So, jess we talked about some fun reporting you did
on Miss America in this episode that all week long
you've been asking me about stories from my past. So
next week we're going to reveal some fun behind the
scenes experiences we've both had, right.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Like the time you booke Jessica Simpson for Katie Couric show.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Yes, I'm finally going to talk about Jessica Simpson, which.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I know you've been dying to hear about.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I have, so tune in next week and you'll hear
all about it.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
This is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Email us at inretropod at gmail dot com or find
us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at suzib nyc. Also check out Jessica's books, Feminist,
Fike Club, and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.
Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Sharan
Atia is our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
your hosts Susie Bannacarum and Jessica Bennett.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
We are also executive producers for even more check out
in retropod dot com.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
See you next week.
Hey, everyone, this is part two of our episodes about
Vanessa Williams and Miss America. If you haven't listened to
part one, I recommend starting there.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I know Miss America.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
It's Vanessa Willy out of his face.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Vanessa Williams upended more than sixty years of white beauty
standards when she was crowned Miss America in nineteen eighty four,
making history as the first black pageant winner. But when
a nude photo scandal forced her to cut her rain short,
the public shaming was swift and relentless.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Miss America. Vanessa Williams took off her clothes, and now
she's being asked to give up her crown. Within seventy
two hours.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Racist hate mail was sent to her parents home. Derogatory
graffiti was scrawled on shops in her hometown. She was
characterized as a slut in the press. As one cultural
historian put it, she became the pageant's own hester prynne.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
But Vanessa Williams didn't go away quietly.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
She would go on to make a staggering comeback, and
of the publisher who released her nude photos, she vowed,
I won't let that man destroy me. I'm Jessica Bennett
and I'm Susie Vannacaram. This is in retrospect. For each week,
we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Us and that we just can't stop thinking about today.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
We're talking about Vanessa Williams, who made history as the
first Black Miss America, but whose win was overshadowed by
a scandal that stripped her of her crown. We're also
talking about Miss America, the beauty paget that, for more
than a century sent a particular message about what womanhood
was supposed to look like.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Young, fin unmarried, and white.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Jess Let's take a moment to recap where we ended
part one. Yeah, so, Vanessa Williams has had this historic
when as the first Black Miss America. She's almost made
it through the year long term, and it's been a
roller coaster. She's had these amazing opportunities, but she's also
experienced some pretty explicit racist backlash.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
And before her historic rate ends, Vanessa finds out that
the porn magazine Penthouse is going to publish a bunch
of nude photos she'd posed for as a model a
few years before she entered the pageant. Right, And it's
important to say that these nude photos were sold by
the photographer without her permission.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right, Yes, exactly, they're sold without her permission. And the
photos are also with another woman in a lot of
suggestive poses, which I'm saying only to note that there's
this kind of homophobic undertone to the whole thing as well.
And you know, Penthouse, the magazine, of course, really leans
into the whole Miss America thing. One of the headlines
is here she comes dot dot do.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Of course, of course that's a he gat frame it.
And so now we heard the clip at the top.
The Miss America pageant is basically demanding she turn over
her crown, and they've given her just seventy two hours
to figure out what to do. But it doesn't really
sound like she has options, right.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, it doesn't really seem like she has many options.
And so Vanessa and her family, and her publicist and
her lawyer, they're all hunkered down in her childhood home
in upstate New.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
York trying to figure out what to do.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
And meanwhile, as you can imagine, the media is going crazy.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
I can imagine. I imagine they are going absolutely nuts.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
You know, this is the era of the tabloids.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So the New York Daily News headline says miss America
in Nudie picks. Some of the other headlines choice headlines
Vanessa the dressa that was real terrible and mess America
mess like mass yeah, and then another one there she
is dot dot dot in the buck.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Your heart really breaks for her, like this has to
feel so awful. She's had this incredibly rough, overwhelming year,
even though it's been exciting, to suddenly be exposed in
this way must feel terrible.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
She actually, in her memoir describes it as feeling like
she'd been raped, Like it felt so utterly violating, and
she had no control over how the images appear or
the fact that they did appear. And what was interesting, too,
is that all of the press at this time is
then like going and doing these men on the street
interviews where they're just asking any old, random person what
(04:10):
they think. And so there's this interesting clip that I
kept hearing in recap segments of this kind of middle
aged white lady pontificating on what she has done and
what it means for black people.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
I felt that she, you know, she had the opportunity
to do something very good for black people, and she
let them down.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Thank you, white lady for telling us how black people
feel about Vanessa Williams. I'm sure black people felt some
sympathy for her, at least some people did. I mean,
this is not okay when someone releases pictures of you
in this way.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
This is terrible.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, and it's interesting too, because this, of course is
before the time that we understood what that meant. We
say now, like she didn't consent to the photos, but
people weren't using that language then. But one of the
interesting things that happens is that at this time she
had done this whole cover shoot for Essence magazine and
they had this big piece coming out about her. It
was really celebratory of her, and when the editor got
(05:06):
the news, it was too late to pull her from
the cover. So there she was in all of these
negative headlines, and she's also on the cover of Essence,
which interestingly actually boosted Essences sales because of course it
was now this scandal, but it also hurt their subscriptions
because readers thought they were condoning these photos.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, And of course, not surprisingly, when Penthouse actually does
publish the images soon After Vanessa is given this kind
of heads up, sales for that magazine go absolutely wild.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
While the photos may have ended her reign, they have
not hurt sales of the magazine they were pooming.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Penhouse, by the way, we should note, is an explicit magazine,
like much more so than Playboy. Playboy is considered in
this genre, like the tasteful one of the tour, and
over time that issue of Penhouse would become the best
selling issue of all time, earning twenty four million dollars,
none of which Vanessa Williams gets, of course, not that
she would want it. It's interesting because at this time
(06:09):
Penthouse this is like kind of its mo o. They
had done something similar to Suzanne Summers.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
A couple of years earlier.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
They would do this to Madonna a year later, and
then somewhat famously, they did this to Pamela Anderson, where
they would buy these photos from whoever had them or
leaked to them, and it didn't matter whether the person
who was in the photo had any say in it
or wanted them to appear.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Oh that's right, I remember we talked about that during
the Pamela Anderson episode. Okay, so they basically are creeps.
I mean, that's going to be my takeaway from this.
So this magazine hits the newsstands, what comes next?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
As you know, the pageant is pushing for her to resign,
and Al Marx, who is the head of the Miss
America organization at this time, says, quote, she knows that
the photographs are totally inconsistent with the Miss America image.
I mean sure, And then he goes on to say,
as a man, as a father, as a grandfather, as
a human being, I've never seen anything like these photos.
(07:07):
I can't even show them to my wife.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
I mean, why is she showing penhouse to his wife? Like,
don't do that then?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Or maybe do do that anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
But let me just say for those wondering, because I
feel like if I were listening, I would be wondering
what is actually in the photos? They are extremely sexually suggestive,
like she's simulating sex acts with this other model. There
is full frontal. You can really imagine how mortifying this
is for her.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
I really feel for her. So how did her parents react?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Yeah, I mean you can just imagine having to tell
your parents this is occurring. But her parents were actually
supportive and were in fact really opposed to her resigning.
Her father told the Post at the time, our feeling
is that she should continue with it. We feel she's
earned it. We feel it could be seen as an
admission of guilt of having done something that was wrong
and distasteful, and we don't feel that she did.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I mean, that's honestly, really nice.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
It's good that she had supportive parents who really held
her up during this, because you know, in a lot
of cases, people's parents aren't misunderstanding.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
So I like that for her.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, And there were people who supported her through this too.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I mean, once somebody becomes an underdog, sometimes peo will
come out of the woodwork in support.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So there were.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Those who took to the streets with signs that said
things like long Live the Queen and boycott Penthouse and
were protesting the magazine and really did stand by her.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Bow wait Bonga way.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Finally, after her seventy two hours are up, Vanessa Williams
holds a press conference to address the question of her resignation.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
I would like to start and everyone here, good afternoon,
ladies and gentlemen of the press, and thank you for
your attendance today.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So she reads from a paper of her prepared remarks,
this is a packed room. It's happening in Manhattan. You
can see that she is charismatic even in the face
of these charges. Her voice is clear and calm. She
manages to smile and make eye contact.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
As you all know, the Miss America passion is asked
for me to resign as Miss America nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Now with the time for my response.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
First, she addresses how the photos came to be. So
it's nineteen eighty two, she's a freshman in college. She
replies to a model's wanted classify mad and when she
goes in, the photographer who's hiring is basically like, look,
if you want to be a model, you need a portfolio,
so I can help you with that. And so the
photographer offers her a summer job as his receptionist and
(09:30):
makeup artist. She had some experience in that, and she
says they had a mostly normal working relationship, but then
he would frequently ask if she wanted to pose nude,
and eventually she.
Speaker 7 (09:41):
Agrees, based on his persistence and encouragement that I would
be a good subject and his assurance that the photographs
would just be for me to see.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I was ultimately persuaded to do a session.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So first they do like an artsy nude shoot in
a forest. These photos are never lead. Then a week
later he asks her if she wants to do another
nude shoot, and this time it's with another woman. The
poses in the nude shoot look like they're meant to
be simulating sex.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Each pose was set up.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
At no time was there any spontaneous or ongoing activity
between myself and the other model.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
One thing I want to note here is that she
does tell people later on, I know these photos look incriminating,
but believe me, there was no lesbian activity that in
of itself we could unpractic.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But that's what she says.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And he promised her that these would be silhouette style photos,
like you wouldn't be able to see her face. He
promises that he will not publish them. He lied, obviously.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
After viewing the photos, I was enraged and I felt
a deep sense of personal embarrassment. It is one thing
to face up to a mistake that one makes a youth,
but he is almost totally devastating to have to share
it with the American public and the world at large,
as both a human being and as miss and earth.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
She then goes on to thank her family, friends and
all of those who've come to her defense in what
she describes as the most difficult time in my young life,
and then she says.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
Therefore, I do officially relinquish my title as Miss America.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
In nineteen eighty four, to the Miss America pageant.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Good Evening, Miss America, Vanessa Williams has lost her crown.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
NESSA. Williams yielded her crown. That's the glamor of pageant, Demanda.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
He was stripped of her crown, that apparently being the
only thing she had not previously doffed voluntarily.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Jess, I'm curious did she have to resign? Are there
actually rules in the pageants that she had violated?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting technically not.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
But she had signed a contract swearing to quote good
moral character, so that kind of leaves it to Miss
America to decide what good moral character it is. And
then she had also pledged that she had not engaged
in what they describe as acts of moral turpitude, So
the contract doesn't define moral turpitude or good moral character.
But I think that you can make the assumption that
(12:19):
they didn't think this was appropriate.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
I'm embarrassed to admit that I do not know what
turpeitude means.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I was just thinking of the same thing. What is moralude?
So clearly we need to google that. But I feel
like we get the gest right.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
We get the idea. We get the idea.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
So now she's resigned, does she go away quietly or
then what?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
First off, she vows to keep fighting, which I think
is pretty interesting. There's this famous interview she gives to
People magazine shortly after all this happens in nineteen eighty
four that she starts by saying, I'm going to fight
if it takes my last dime.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I'm fighting for my life and for the people I've
let down.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Good for her, yeah, it is good for her and
to be able to say that, like she's not just
backing away quietly. But one of the things that is
so sad in the same interview is that she talks
about how she feels like she hasn't just let women down,
but she's let the whole black community down. And she
goes on to say, you know, I made a terrible
error in judgment. I know I'll have to pay for
it as long as I live. And then there's this line,
(13:19):
which I feel like is one of these lines I've
heard repeated and is one of the reasons why I
wanted to revisit this story where she says, but I
am not a lesbian and I am not a slut,
and somehow I'm going to make people believe me.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
I mean, you can understand why she felt the need
to say that, but it's depressing because there's so many
layers of ingrained homophobia and like shame around sex in
that and you know, it makes sense she's a product
of her time.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
But now we would be clear that there's.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Nothing wrong with being a lesbian, and frankly, there's something
wrong with being a slut, like your body, your choice.
What happens to the title, because you know, it's pretty
close to the end of the term, right, good question.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I mean, you would think that they could just wait
until the following year, but they actually promote or whatever
the word is. In Miss America Land, her first runner up,
who is this woman? Sus that Charles also a black woman,
she assumes the throne and when she does, she says
she would represent quote the wholesome American image. So really,
putting herself in contrast to what people were perceiving.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Fanessa, I don't like to.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
See that, Charles. I feel like she's being rud to
Vanessa with this little comment.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I mean, it does seem that way.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And then the pageant allows Vanessa to keep the scholarship money,
but she does lose a bunch of money and endorsement deals,
like that's a product of being Miss America. All of
these companies partner with you, you do endorsements, and so
she loses that money. She ultimately ends up suing the
magazine and the photographer, but they argue that she had
signed waivers allowing them to use the photos.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Vanessa says that's not the case.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
But basically what happens is her lawyers warn her that
her life and her sexual life if she goes through
with this suit, would be put so firmly under the microscope,
either in discovery or in deposition.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
And so she drops the suit.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But meanwhile, as all of this is going down, it
turns out this is great for Miss America the pageant.
They gain renewed interest. In nineteen eighty four, ticket sales
jumped by twenty percent, viewership briefly leaps back to seventy
four million, like they're thriving or in the wake of
this scandal.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
There's nothing like a scandal to resurrect, righting suit.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Then you may think we're getting to the end of
the bad parts of the story, but it's not actually
over yet, because what happens is that more nude photos
come to go and again Penthouse Princess, poor girl.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I know, I know.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And basically this is from a shoot from around the
same time, and this is a different photographer, another supposed
fashion photographer, And the scandal this time is that it
was kind of an S and M esque shoot. Vanessa
is in like a leather harness and handcuffs and the
photos are published in the January nineteen eighty five edition
(16:04):
of Penthouse.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And this time she thought she had all the negatives right,
she had actually like made the effort to get the
negatives of these photos.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yes, so in this case she has talked about how
she was really uncomfortable midshoot, like she knew that she
felt uncomfortable. She cut the shoot short and she went
back a week later, I think with her boyfriend at
the time to get all of the negatives or so
she thought. It's interesting too, because all of this kind
of reminds me of these stories that have come out
more recently about like Terry Richardson and all of these
(16:32):
quote unquote fashion photographers who are men who co were
some models.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
I was just thinking about that.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
I think if you were not around for this era,
some of these stories may seem strange, like why did
she agree to do these things? But the reality is,
if you were a model coming up in the eighties,
you were asked to do these shoots, and if you
didn't do them, you were considered prude and sometimes dinged
in your career.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
So it was kind of an impossible choice.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Like you needed to show that you were game and
you were playful and you were willing to take risks.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
And so I'm sure she felt like she had to
do this.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
She felt well, and she's so young, I mean, like
she's a teenager, so what better does she.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
Yeah, she is so young.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
It's always easy to forget when we're talking about these
stories that these are nineteen twenty twenty one year old
girls usually, so is she really demoralized at this point?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
She's so strong, she's actually steadfast even as the second hit,
the second terrible thing comes she's going to keep fighting.
In that People magazine article I mentioned, she says of
the head of Penthouse Magazine, and one thing you can
be sure.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Of, I won't let that man destroy me. And she doesn't.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
She is adamant that she's going to fight for the
bigger dream for her, which always was to be in
the entertainment business, to be a singer and actress.
Speaker 8 (17:47):
I feel at this time I should expand my energies
and launching what I hope will be a successful career
in the entertainment business. I feel my new career will
be the greatest challenge in my life.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
This episode makes me love Vanessa Williams more and more,
like really inspiring that she did not just crawl away
like they wanted her to and hide.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And she does end up taking some time away from
the spotlight. Probably smart, But what happens is she makes
one of the greatest comebacks in entertainment history.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
No so yeah, I mean, we recognize that song.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Vanessa Williams goes on to have a very successful career
as a Laddies pop star. Her debut album drops in
nineteen eighty eight. It has multiple singles on the Billboard charts,
and then She goes on to receive eleven Grammy nominations.
She enters stage and film, she becomes a television act like,
she's nominated for four Emmys and Tony all sorts of accolades,
(18:47):
really really successful. She performs a song in Pocahontas, which
then ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
I just want to say that it's kind of amazing
that she went from being dethroned to appearing in a
Disney movie like I am right, No, it really is
totally turned things around.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's so interesting to think about what allows someone to
move past a thing that happened in this era where
we didn't let women move past things, and what doesn't
and like, what are the small differences that allowed her
to seemingly really move on from this and become like
a huge star on Ugly Betty.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
I remember loving her character willem.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh, Yes, I loved Ugly Betty even if I wanted
to express simply I physically can't so good.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
And you know, if it isn't already clear, Vanessa really
is a multifaceted talent. You know, she's on Broadway, she
does mainstream TV. She's a singer, she has.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Gone on to write books.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
She really is doing everything that she set out to
do and said she would.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
And I think it's partially just who she is, right,
I mean, she is someone who refuses to be torn down.
I mean there is something really amazing about that.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And actually she kind of acknowledges that later, like in
nineteen ninety six she gets a Career Achievement prize and
she says in her speech, I knew once the deat settled,
I would ultimately get the chance to do what I
do best.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
And she really she did.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
Yes, Vanessa William's hero.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Also, who needs Miss America anyway?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, she really didn't need Miss America. In fact, she
rose from those ashes and was able to never look back, right.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Well, okay, kind of, except that she does go back
many years later, basically as Vanessa's career rises, Miss America's
currency stock whatever you want to call it, plat interest,
not surprisingly recently, thirty two years after her crowning and
dethroning in twenty fifteen, Miss America actually invites her back
(20:47):
to be a judge.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Oh my god, that's isn't that sunny? So funny? And
also that must have felt so good.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I wonder what was going through her mind when she
was deciding whether or not.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
To accept right, And actually it ended up causing like
its own mini scandal because the question was whether she
would apologize to them no, or if the organization would
apologize to her.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I'm like how that would play out.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
When she does finally get up on stage at the
twenty fifteen pageant, it must have been so validating. Sam Haskell,
who then was the pageant's CEO, apologizes to her and
to her mother, who is in the audience.
Speaker 9 (21:24):
You have lived your life in grace and dignity, and
never was it more evident than during the events of
nineteen eighty four when you resigned. Though none of us
currently in the organization were involved in on behalf of
today's organization, I want to apologize to you.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
And to your mother, Miss Helen Williams. I really am
so happy right now.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
I love it. I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
About this, and I love it like the ultimate vindication
a little bit.
Speaker 10 (22:02):
Yes, she gets her revenge.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
So you've been to Miss America?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Right?
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Was that the year you went?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yes, I have been to Miss America.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
It was Actually it's one of the most fun things
I've met I've remembered I would go. Sometimes you just
get to go on a reporting trip, but it's like, ah,
this is why I do this, And Miss America was
that for me.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Yes, I love a weird reporting trip.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
It was not the year that Vanessa Lyms came back.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It was a couple of years later, but it was
interesting because so she appears, and then a year or
so later is when the me too movement begins, and
so by the time I'm going is when this really
complex conversation is happening in the culture about what is
appropriate and what is appropriate when it comes to even
(22:57):
something as seemingly silly as a beauty path. There's all
this discussion around whether beauty pageants should exist at all,
if swimsuits should be allowed. Is that objectification? And then
actually that year that I went, Gretchen Carlson, she is
the woman who successfully sued Fox News for sexual harassment
(23:17):
the former newscast, and also America had taken over for
that guy I mentioned earlier, Sam Haskell, who had gotten
in trouble for sending lude emails about the contestants Natchurally,
but of course.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
There's always a bad man somewhere in the shadows whenever
we're talking about anything.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
So, what was it, like?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Tell me everything. It's on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It's in this huge stadium, and I'm kind of expecting
it to be glitzy and glam and it is not that.
It's pretty dark, like literally dark, and also feels kind
of dark.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
There's not very many people there.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
At one point, I'm sort of poking around trying to
get a sense of the place, and I go down
this long hallway that's sort of the backstage area of
any stadium, and I come across the actual office to
the Miss America headquarters and it has like a sad
piece of paper identifying itself. It's like this dark, dingy
office with like gray, kind of dirty carpets. It's all
(24:16):
pretty run down, and Atlantic City has had financial trouble
and is pretty run down too, So they were so
desperate for people to come to the event itself that
people were handing out flyers to like random passerbys on
the street to go for free.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Tickets to fill empty seats.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
And the flyers said, all you need to do is
get dressed up really nice and show up to board wall.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's time has passed.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Like I think it might be time to accept that
Miss America's time has passed.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
It really is right, and so I mean, and that
was really why I was there in the first place.
It was like they were attempting to rebrand for the
modern era.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And so what did that mean?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Well, for starters, there was a lot of linguistic terminology
change happening. So it was no longer being called a
pageant this year, it was being called a competition. The
participants were no longer participants or contestants. They were candidates
run running for office, yes, and they were interviewing for
the job of I was really framed as a job.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I'm always interviewing with vasilin on my teeth and like
a see exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
They had gotten rid of the runway and the word
miss had actually been stripped from the sashes, so normally
it's like Miss Washington, miss New York, so it would
just say New York. But each sash did also still
have a little pocket for your lipstick.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Go oh, I never knew that sashes had that. That's
actually very functional.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And then of course, as I mentioned, there were no
swimsuits like that was really the big change, And so
when Gretchen Carlson, who was then the head of the organization,
would talk about it, she'd be like, this is a
place where we can highlight diverse and inclusive and empowered
candidates and leaders.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
They're beautiful inside and that.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
I was like, oh this, Yes, they're beautiful inside and out.
But we're still gonna pick the most beautiful.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Right though, I do.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I mean, I feel like I went in with a
lot of stereotypes about Miss America, many of which we
have probably expressed here thiscast.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
But these women were really impressive, I must say.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And they were impressive not just because they were literal neuroscientists.
They were like Harvard software developers who work for Microsoft,
woman who worked in STEM. One of them had started
a cancer organization. They talked about growing up with incarcerated parents,
and had developed nonprofit organizations to deal with campus sexual assault,
(26:38):
like all of those really impressive things. But then on
top of that, they could like dance and do ventriloquism and.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Play the harmonicas isn't one of the talents you mentioned clogging?
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Do some of them do clog?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Oh my god, yes, I have some amazing videos from
this that I wish we could show. But yes, there
was a clogging episode. There was like one, there was one.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
How do I even just guess?
Speaker 1 (27:02):
It was like an interpretive dance with a ghost. That
does not clarify anything I was performing with a ghost.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
I don't know, but it was all just incredible.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
I also feel like the only reason I know about baton.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Twirling is pageants, Like I'm always envisioning someone up there
with the baton. I mean, it is really interesting that
such fascinating women are choosing to do this. Is it
for the scholarship money? Like, it's interesting that these women
who are going to Harvard or are neuroscientists are drawn
to this still in some way.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I mean, I think a lot of them are doing
it for the scholarship money and for visibility for their
like nonprofit organizations to cure insert specific kind of cancer
or other bad things. They really were very mission driven,
really fascinating, and I don't know, you know, maybe all
of these women had really interesting paths and they just
weren't able to express them during the time when Miss
(27:56):
America was popular, or maybe they've gone out of their
way to work people who have interesting paths. I don't know,
but what appeared to be much more progressive or what
they were aiming to have be much more progressive on
the outside was having a full fledged, as one woman
described it to me, civil war.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
Oh on the inside.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
All right, So if you were to imagine going into
a conference room in this giant stadium where all of
these state and local enthusiasts, like really strong enthusiasts who
have a lot of feelings about As America were gathering
to essentially try to stage a coup to overthrow the president.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
They were trying to overthrow Gretchen Carlson.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I think it was just a culture war happening on
a micro level inside this organization.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Like they did not want it to choose.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
There was like a real division about whether they wanted
it to change or not, whether she was the right
leader for it. In the week leading after the pageant,
they were like posters hung around town in Atlantic City
with giant letters calling Gretchen Carlson so fake amazing, It's
like fully.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Midol, I love a dark underbelly. I like it.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
There was a blue sash with the words Gretchen sucks
that was placed on this statue of Miss America that's
perched outside the hall because it's been taking place here
for so many years, so people would go and pose
in front of that statue and like it would have
the sash on it.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
I just want to say that I would watch a
scripted series about the war inside Miss America, because.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
I bet you it would be hilario.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I mean, maybe we need to do that.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
I'm in let's do it.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I wish I had recordings that we could play. But
basically I snuck into this secret meeting of the local
leaders where they were plotting this over through. Okay, but
it was so interesting because it was happening at the
same time that Miss America was just grasping for relevance,
and at this time, viewership was basically at an all
time low. They've tried moving in to different stations, They've
(29:59):
tried all these different th but like nobody wanted to
watch Miss America. They couldn't even fill the little seats
in the stadium we were in, and so I don't know,
maybe it was a bit of a last gas, but
I just happened to be lucky enough to wear Miss It.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, I do feel like that's lucky. I wish I
had been there with you. I can't believe you didn't
invite me.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
So where is Miss America today? Is it totally off
the air now?
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So I'm sure if you were to ask Miss America
enthusiasts question, they would take something really different. But it's
pretty much irrelevant. It's only live streamed on their website now.
People are not watching it. It did not air on
TV last year, and I'm not sure what the state
of it is, and I don't think people are talking
about it really.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
It sort of reminds me of when we talk about
soap operas, like there's always going to be fans, There's
always going to be people who feel a real connection,
but there are just some things that don't maintain the
same cultural.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Relevance, even things with long interesting albeit problematic the word
we yeah and don't like she's on the show. Histories
sometimes have to get retired. But the good news here
is Vanessa Williams does't Nameless America. She is way past that.
She's thriving.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
I know Vanessa Williams thriving.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
That is the message of this podcast.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
What she been doing lately.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
So she has been a judge on RuPaul's Queen of
the universe, which is the Drag Queen Singing Competition, which
is very fun, very fun. She is in a Broadway show,
a recent Broadway show called Potus, where she actually plays
the first Lady.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
It's an all female cast.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
It was described as I haven't seen it, but like
bride'smaids in the White House are trying to keep the
president alive.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
It sounds very fun.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And she recently turned sixty and as she told Jennifer
Hudson on her talk show, there is a sense of ease.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The older you get, the less you care about what
everybody else has to say.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
This is the best. I love a comeback story.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
This has been one of my favorites, so I feel
like this is a great place to end it.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
You know, as they put it in Miss Congeniality, she
is beauty, she is grace, she is Miss United States.
But I guess in this case miss America and also
screw Miss America. Before we go, I wanted to give
a quick shout out to two authors whose books were instrumental.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
In our research of this episode.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The first is Margot Mifflin, whose book is Looking for
Miss America, a Pageant's one hundred year quest to define Womanhood,
and the second is Amy Argetsinger, whose book is There
She Was The Secret History of Miss America. They're both
fascinating reads and you can find links to them in
our show notes.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
So, jess we talked about some fun reporting you did
on Miss America in this episode that all week long
you've been asking me about stories from my past. So
next week we're going to reveal some fun behind the
scenes experiences we've both had, right.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Like the time you booke Jessica Simpson for Katie Couric show.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Yes, I'm finally going to talk about Jessica Simpson, which.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I know you've been dying to hear about.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I have, so tune in next week and you'll hear
all about it.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
This is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Email us at inretropod at gmail dot com or find
us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at suzib nyc. Also check out Jessica's books, Feminist,
Fike Club, and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Media.
Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronoff is our producer. Sharan
Atia is our researcher and associate producer.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda
Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We are
your hosts Susie Bannacarum and Jessica Bennett.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
We are also executive producers for even more check out
in retropod dot com.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
See you next week.
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