In “Misbehaviour” we have the story of the first black girl to win the Miss World title, and at the same time the story of the first beauty contest is temporarily sabotaged by a group of fanatic feminists, and the two stories are so intertwined that the writers, Rebecca Fren and Gabi Chiap, and director Philippa Lothorp, They had to give the two parts equal space, so which story is more important?
The answer for the author of this topic is the story of the first black girl to win the title, because she made a new history and gave hope to millions of African-American girls to compete with their other ethnic counterparts. What about the story of the feminist group? For the author of this topic, he forgot about it once the movie ended!
The first is a story that rewrote history, and the second is just a recording. Of course, this does not mean that everyone who watches the movie will agree with this writer, but by looking carefully at the two stories, the first is the most worthy, and the second is a secondary story, because since it happened in protest against the competition, it was not repeated in the same way, and the Miss World contest continued to this day. It is organized at all levels, whether at the level of each country, or globally.
But the movie is told from the perspective of the feminist group, so their story is on the front. On November 20, 1970, chaos dominated London's famous Albert Hall, while hosting the Miss World contest.
Broadcaster Bob Hope (Greg Kinnear) was on stage joking about beautiful girls in tight swimwear. Suddenly, the audience heard a rampage coming from one side of the stage, and there was chaos when a group of protesting girls stood screaming slogans against the slavery and exploitation of women, and against the domination of men by public order.
It became clear later that these women from the women's liberation movement who threw theatrical theatrical bombs, and assaulted the organizers of the competition with water pistols for children, demanding the cessation of what they called a circus to display the bodies of women for entertainment purposes, or according to their special analogy: "women's cattle market." The riot plots are Sally Alexander (Keira Knightley) and Joe Robinson (Jesse Buckley), two contrasting personalities from the same political orientation (the second feminist wave), Alexander is an educated academic and mother with a degree from Oxford University. Televised and non-televised debates enter as if the debate proves its value as a human being and loses some of it to professors and intellectuals.
Alexander wants to change the system, while Robinson believes in change through chaos, so we see her taking pigments and spraying them on billboards urging the woman to please her husband, which is contrary to the feminist orientation, because they are biased towards the man.
Robinson accuses Alexander of subservience and peacefulness, and she rejects the method of change by force. But, according to the movie, when the two girls put their differences aside, change begins. These two girls in Lothorp's hands are the wave heroes of feminism that, from the point of view of the filmmakers, deserve to be glorified by placing their photo on protest boards or mugs.
According to the movie, their partnership represents a harmonious vision of empowering women, even if they are very extremist, because they want to upset concepts that were established thousands of years ago, and these concepts are not all wrong. Yes, there are concepts that need to be reviewed, but there are concepts that cannot change, such as the mother taking care of her children in the early years of development, as the role of men at this stage is very limited and cannot be equal to the role of women. The film does not focus much on these details, but rather on their view that fights the beauty queens of the universe, and looking at the competition as if it exploits women in the most horrific exploitation. In the meantime, the beautiful Belle Jennifer Houston (Gogo Mpatha Rowe) fell from the director's fingers and sidelined in the interest of Alexander and Robinson, although her story is more worthy of the film as mentioned above. Lost Googo does not know what to do in a scenario that does not give her character’s story its right, because it focuses on the rebel factor over the system. Here comes the most difficult moment in the movie, because it represents two completely contradictory points of view, but the director's highlighting of the contradiction is a sign of her courage and fear of the other opinion.
Jennifer is the other opinion here, because Alexander and Robinson are fighting the evil system that is dominated by men, and they have everything that Jennifer was deprived of as white women living in an advanced and rich society. But Jennifer is a girl who came from the impoverished, or perhaps humble, community to crown in Britain and in front of the whole world as the first African-American woman to miss Miss Universe. Should she reject the title for the sake of a feminist movement?
"The award will change the way girls look from my color to themselves, and change the world’s view of them," Jennifer said in her interview with Alexander, the movie's strongest viewer. And this is true because she wrote a new history, and millions of girls of her own kind spoiled that Miss World is not exclusive to whites. After this dialogue, the film turns into pleasing dialogues for both parties, as if he does not want to condemn anyone, but stresses that the chaos that occurred in that version of the competition was a smart movement, a view that we respect and do not agree with.
The movie officially falls under the category comedy drama, although it bears the features of biographical films, and it is good and balanced in general, and it has a great amount of entertainment and worth seeing, compared to the poor options that fill cinemas.
It is noteworthy that the beauty pageant with its international and local versions, which the Women's Liberation Movement condemns, has made the future of many movie stars, such as Sharon Stone, Eva Langoria, Oprah Winfrey, Vanessa Williams, and non-Americans, Ashwarya Rai, Gall Galadot, and Priyanka Chopra, and there is also a more popular men’s version of who won With her twin muscle, Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1968.
To view this topic in full, please click on this link.
The story of the first beauty contest is temporarily ruined by a group of fanatic feminists.
The movie officially falls under the category comedy drama, although it bears the features of biographical films, and it is good and balanced in general, and it has a great amount of entertainment, and it is worth watching, compared to the bad options that fill cinemas.