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Date: July 25, 2008 at 00:19:17
From: www.bigdrumnation.org
Subject: BEYOND MISS WORLD-AN ELECTRONIC CONVERSATION WITH JENNIFER HOSTEN.

URL: www.bigdrumnation.org

 
BEYOND MISS WORLD-AN ELECTRONIC CONVERSATION WITH JENNIFER HOSTEN.

Three cheers to you Cousin Jennifer
The fairest of all that is what you are
Charm and mannerism
With poise and magnetism
And stepping in style
With a lovely smile
Oh, how we love Cousin Jennifer
And we are all very proud of her
She is the most beautiful
Yes, the most wonderful
The most beautiful girl in the world.
The Mighty Sparrow, "Jennifer"


Socrates: A man put me in difficulty by
asking me more or less this question with
great arrogance. "Tell me, Socrates, how
do you know which things are beautiful and
which are ugly?"
-Plato, Hippias Major(or What is Beauty).


Jennifer Hosten's capture of the 1970 Miss World
title occured just as the "second wave" of feminism
began to hit its stride.Significantly, the birth of
this second wave of feminism was heralded by a fiery
protest -what the mainstream media took to portraying
as a bonfire of bras-at the 1968 Miss America Pageant
in Atlantic City.

For the New Feminists,the beauty pageant was the
glitzy emblem of women's oppression.
Ms. Hosten will shrink from making the claim,but it
is fairly safe to say that her victory magnified our
dot on the world map and probably helped to undermine
the racial fantasies tenanted in the hard heads of
South Africa's Apartheid rulers who sent two
contestants to the 1970 show-one white,
one "coloured".The coloured South African was
first runner-up to Jennifer.

The Miss World victory was of course a huge personal
triumph for the then 22-year-old Ms Hosten. It
represented both Arrival and Departure. Arrival
because the title of " most beautiful girl in the
world" opened many gilded doors to international
celebrity; Departure because the lofty heights of
international fame furnished other vistas to success
and self-fullfillment.

Ms Hosten carried out her Miss World duties with
dignity and in the years following her 12-month reign
she got married, served as Grenada's High ommissioner
to Canada, raised two children, worked as Canadian
diplomat in Bangadesh, and as a technical adviser on
trade to the St Lucia-based Organization of Eastern
Caribbean States (OECS):we concede that this does not
read very much like the career path of a former Miss
World.

And nearly forty years following her 1970 coronation
Jennifer returned to that glittering night in London,
where she invoked her Miss World victory only to
transform it into a backdrop against which she
recounts her story. She tells this fascinating story
(with some help from husband Shaun) in an
autobiographical book entitled Beyond Miss World.

We heard that Ms Hosten was preparing to hit the road
to promote her book, so we got in touch with her and
asked for an interview. She responded rather
promptly, " no problem".

What follows is the transcript of an electronic
conversation between Jennifer Hosten (JH) and
Caldwell Taylor (CT)


Visit www.bigdrumnation.org for Part 1 of the interview





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