Misbehavior features an ensemble cast bringing to life a possibly forgotten story about the events surrounding the 1970 Miss World beauty pageant. The focal point issue is women’s liberation from the patriarchy, but as it unfolds, it gradually broadens its scope to more generally become an intersectional flashpoint for issues of gender, race, class and colonialism. It is an affable British film that my mom and I found appealing for a variety of different reasons.
If there was not a global pandemic, I would have seen Misbehavior in theaters because I love Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Miss Grenada and surpasses my expectations in this film, from her too brief performances in Odd Thomas, Miss Sloane, A Wrinkle in Time, Concussion and Motherless Brooklyn or her meatier roles in Belle, Beyond the Lights and Fast Color. I knew that the movie was based on a true story, and the promotional poster is a huge spoiler so I wanted to know how I missed the fact that Vanessa Williams was not the first black woman crowned a title in a beauty pageant. My mom does not usually enjoy watching movies, but once I told her that it was set in London and was about a beauty pageant, she was locked and loaded. We watched it on Easter/Resurrection Sunday, which is also a big deal for mom.
Misbehavior was better than I expected. The movie begins with Keira Knightley’s character, Sally Alexander, so I thought it was going to be more cliché than it actually was. It initially centers an every (young, white) woman character for viewers to relate to as she radicalizes into taking less civil approaches as she discovers the sexist limitations of changing the establishment from within. I actually like Knightley so I would not have minded her being the center of the story. I also thought that this expected story was perfectly encapsulated in the title and the historical setting as a play on words. It sounds like Miss Behavior. Bueller?
If Misbehavior has a weakness, it was waiting so long to reveal that it was using Alexander like a baton to handoff attention to other (more interesting) characters and expand the scope of the film to depict others’ perspectives including a few men. 1970 is before my time, but Bob Hope was not. Hope was a fixture in the entertainment world, but revisiting him in the twenty-first century is a horrifying experience that makes the movie work. Hope and pageants can occupy seemingly harmless childhood memories that as an adult seem wholly inappropriate with the benefit of hindsight as an adult. There is one scene that echoes this viewing experience when three generation of women are watching the pageant’s promotion on television. The child’s reaction is a call to action to protect what little progress women made.
Beginning Misbehavior by briefly showing how the pageant fits within the global military industrial complex is not just a way to establish the setting. It is a way to show, rather than tell in a non preachy way that sexism is not just harmful for women. It makes men oblivious to being led to the slaughter in a pointless armed struggle, i.e. the Vietnam War. Beauty pageants are integral to propaganda so it makes it seems less absurd for a group of feminists to prioritize protesting entertainment rather than what may seem like more substantial issues.
Misbehavior tentatively touches on class by comparing and contrasting Alexander with her less conciliatory counterpart, Jo Robinson, whom Jessie Buckley plays. Think of Buckley as potentially Britain’s Natasha Lyonne. I liked her and would have loved to learn more about that character. We get to see the real life counterparts at the end of this film, and it is clear that Buckley is still a pistol as she enters her silver, ahem, I mean purple years. When you are showing instead of telling about class to an American, it is hard to distinguish between general hippies and a conscious communal choice to live outside the traditional capitalist system.
Misbehavior also briefly and perfectly addresses the role that internalized misogyny plays when women value work that is considered more masculine than more feminine. It is an underexplored point in terms of the pageant.
When Misbehavior gets to the inner workings of the pageant, it takes on a more comedic tone as it embraces the Hey, Let’s Put on a Show trope and get swept away as if we are eavesdropping. It injects an organic momentum as the contestants’ progress and the pageant founder’s anxiety over the logistics culminate in relief as they get closer to the finish line. It also finally discovers its strength in intersectional and international storytelling as Miss Grenada and Miss Sweden become appalled for very different reasons at finally making it to the big time. Every woman is shocked at being treated as if they were children: monitored and touched without consent. One contestant in awe at the glamour is suddenly more cynical and worldwise than her more sophisticated counterpart when it comes to issues of race and beauty.
Misbehavior’s filmmakers really hit multiple issues and turn on a dime as it addresses international politics. It may seem progressive to have smaller, browner countries participate in judging, but it is not if it comes at the price of infantilizing and objectifying women. The contestants are thrilled at the opportunity and stung by being treated like cattle. Just because the filmmakers understand the complex issues, does not mean that it is not above exploiting others and keeping them invisible.
Why is it funny to make Miss Yugoslavia and Miss Japan the butt of the joke as potentially ruining the flow of the show? Why is the problematic chaperone the black one? If the filmmakers were intentionally showing how a white contestant is progressive when interacting with black women who are her equals, but bridles when a black woman exercises power over her, then it is fine, but I do not believe that was the goal. I believe that Misbehavior exploits the revulsion and rebellion over a black woman exercising power to further emphasize the evils of the pageant’s treatment of women, especially by restricting their movement. Movies often cast black characters as the emblematic, enthusiastic evildoers in a system instead of statistically accurately using a white character.
I would have loved more moments with Julia Morley, the wife and business partner of the founder of Miss World. She straddles an uncomfortable line of holding power in an inherently unsafe space that relies on enforcing traditional gender roles that will threaten her power. She is conscious of the problematic nature of her business because she is a smart businesswoman, but not bothered by it until a reporter objectifies her. I did not notice her reaction, but her husband is enraged. How dare you treat her like a contestant! I would have been more fascinated if the camera rested on her reaction a beat longer before her husband steals the show. Is this moment disruptive, barely registered or fall somewhere in between? We will never know. Lesley Manville gets more limelight as the traditional stage wife, and I wonder what she could have done if she played Morley instead.
I enjoyed Misbehavior. The narrative is inconsistent and never quite finds its rhythm as it toggles between characters and issues, but ultimately is pleasing enough and shows a deeper insight than most movies that tackle historical events and big issues. It is an intergenerational, accessible crowd pleaser, not strident or too heavy-handed.