We live in a much more complicated world than in 1955 when the first telecast of the Miss America pageant aired. Even if you don't plan on tuning in to this Sunday's ABC broadcast of the pageant, it is fascinating to reflect on the history and ponder its place in our contemporary culture.
Kate Shindle's Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain is both a charming personal narrative about Shindle's experiences as a former Miss America, and a revelatory historical account and critique of the Miss America Organization. We learned so much about this uniquely American institution that we plucked 9 takeaways from the book that stuck with us.
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Kate Shindle's Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain is both a charming personal narrative about Shindle's experiences as a former Miss America, and a revelatory historical account and critique of the Miss America Organization. We learned so much about this uniquely American institution that we plucked 9 takeaways from the book that stuck with us.
Listen to Kate Shindle's podcast episode (embedded below) and learn what we didn't know about Miss America.
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The feminist symbolic gesture of bra burning is a media myth. History remembers activists burning their bras outside the Miss America pageant in 1968. While bras were among the "instruments of torture" placed in the 'Freedom Trash Can' as part of the protest, bras were not actually set ablaze. The New York Radical Women weren't just protesting Maidenform but the "degrading mindless-boob-girlie symbol." They also put copies of Playboy magazine and high-heeled shoes in there.
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| At the Freedom Trash Can, 1968 (Duke University, special collections) |
