18 asn hmef f s Bulgarian a as ff o himself passing infcne n o h eet in events the to on question. historical much significance too far loads which one tact with the incipient revolution, revolution, play, the in incipient ‘Kabak’ Called businessman. the (or with International con­ establish to Third tact e com has the Comintern) f o representa­ a Here, tive room. hotel Turin a f o décor realistic heavily the in — scenes The idolization o f Gramsci turns out to to out turns Gramsci f o idolization The lns y h Trn okr in workers Turin the by plants ecial a a ahr eoe and remote and rather subject, the on a meditation humanist as with concern describable the while one; mental) e n at a part in be themes. point. their f o much f promising o them rob own which its f the o in obstacles way formidable places also revolution evolves into what is best best is what into evolves revolution Indeed, it is mined by contradictions contradictions by mined is it Indeed, r togt n ato, the engineering the action, f o and occupation thought ary f wnit-etr revolution­ twentieth-century high-points important of one f ost o m the context f o the in set Gramsci, captivate to likely more or mising rlin ad omne fgr of o figure tormented and the brilliant audience: theatre left-wing the pro­ more combination a problem imagine the with preoccupation 1920. rvlto. n cn scarcely can One revolution. f o idolization the is One Place). The da of noi Gasi the Gramsci; general more but political related Antonio a is and other f o personality ideas the f o Trevor Griffith’s play play Griffith’s Trevor oa Saepae opn, at oodbody; G Company, Buzz Shakespeare by Royal (directed wo eakbe ad often and in prominent are themes remarkable, moving, o Tw ARTS 7 Days 10 November 1971 November 10 7 Days The action occurs — except for two two for except — occurs action The Yet it must be admitted that the play play the that admitted be must it Yet romantic ee a senti­ a (even Occupations

bno hs ites o lnl and lonely a to mistress his to abandon happy is Kabak sister, dying his visit play) is prepared to go o ff to Sardinia to to Sardinia to ff o go to prepared is play) edrhp s lal cnrl o the terms to personal in the isunderlined in It later central action. reiterated is clearly and argument, is leadership con­ This led. and leaders f o rapport authentic the constitutes and mentality) too: while Gramsci (near the end o f the f o end the (near Gramsci while too: to and revolt f o humanity vision mechanical Gramsci’s Kabak’s f o traposition senti­ f the o accusations is sacrifice Kabak’s love (ignoring to them: loves willing Kabak Gramsci While workers, be 1920). would (January world” fundamental to the revolution, he insists he revolution, the to fundamental a the in cities with other few very work­ like class ing excellence, compact and par disciplined, distinct, the “ city as letarian described he city the f working o class organized the vanguard, Turin nutil iy a eclec, h pro­ the excellence, par city industrial formidable only the f o would attempt massacre and the fail in result the to bound be that would maintains Gramsci insurrection at whatever cost, while while cost, whatever at urges he with Kabak strongly insurrection revolution: the very outside. about disagree Gramsci to developed comes has situation that revolutionary the discuss and Gramsci/Kabak rather ambiguous symbol o f the ancien ancien servant. the woman a a f —by — o régime and cancer symbol aristocratic womb ambiguous a his rather f o by dying mistress, accompanied is he (partly which at Congress the was This ne Kbkhe’ ifune the play the In away good. for broke Socialists the influence) Party from Communist Italian Kabakchiev’s some under occupations. Socialists factory Italian the after the months Con­ f o Livorno gress famous the at on Comintern — approximately — modelled is he hit Kbkhe, h soe o the for spoke who Kabakchiev, Khristo Gramsci and others com e to visit him, visit to e com others and Gramsci bv Lf e K Ben Left Above Revolution gly sGasi Aoe ih Patrick Right Above asGramsci, ngsley Mucking A Soft Picture o f Gramsci f o Picture Soft A ne of itrcl oeet” I is play. the f It o judgement critical any movement.” historical f o ances important to see what this means, for for means, this what see to important lies nature historical Its reconstruction. in its attempt to catch for a time, time, reson­ a the for room, a catch in to people through attempt its in documentary a not is it “ that one tell hc wud ail cry t o power. to it carry ascendancy rapidly an would which fact, gained in struggles, fascism Turin Italian the f o failure counter-revolu­ the f o forces advancing leaves,he After interest. national Soviet in fsim n nzs. fe the After nazism. and the fascism representing tion, noises into merge herwords and revolution, f o horrors the upon tirade dying a delivers mistresshis the in movements foreign foreign out and workers Soviet selling new the bureaucracy, f o State is tool a revolution as f o unmasked agent the Thus, plant. aor ruls n i nw Russian new his in troubles” labour “ is Fiat that reassures Valletta he this, f o (Vittorio FIAT f o manager general Lenin. words) dialogue’s the (in f o instrument unlikely to encounter such annoying annoying such encounter to unlikely course the in State: deal Soviet new the prospective with a the up with set and met Valletta) has he before not but Italy, from isexpelled Kabak Disgusted, French the offered those like rather the “ iron brain” and “ iron will” of of will” iron “ and brain” an iron “ himself made the has who man aspects a f robot-like o and to inhumanity contrasted the are revolutionary Italian nite promises o f “ participation.” participation.” “ f o promises indefi­ and pay-rises nite 1968: in workers terms f o basis the on back go to decide trade-union referendum the workers workers the referendum trade-union ra hmnt ad amh f the of warmth and humanity broad The bedroom. hotel the in death painful t scranyrpeewt documen- “ with replete is certainly It The programme notes o f f o notes programme The h Trn eouin al. n a In fails. revolution Turin The n tg at stage on h Place The yTm Nairn Tom by about Gramsci Gramsci ith w Love and Occupations

twr a Kabak. as Stewart i cpct t peev a unrelenting an preserve to capacity his lay in a colossal inner toughness, and inand toughness, inner never was colossal a in lay he greatness his But loved: or kind. loveable, apublicly f o giant, a cutting edge, a sinewy intolerance intolerance sinewy a edge, cutting neaal fo Gasis particular certainly was greatness. Gramsci f o sharp Gramsci’s form and from inseparable hard a mark, emotional ol epc — gi mna and mental grim a — expect would In reality, this struggle left — as one one as — left struggle this reality, proletariat. the In love) to (i.e. with terms it helped him eventually to come to to come to eventually him helped with terms it to come to struggle his that eomt: n h pa, t s suggested Gramsci’s is it play, to the in imputed deformity: meaning the ak Bt oe motn, ehp, is perhaps, important, more But back. Gobetti’s contemporary portrait o f the f o portrait inwhom man contemporary Gobetti’s ned o eonz i te ly Piero play the in recognize agree) to indeed accounts the harsh,afigureeven all hard, a was Gramsci (as reality n ot ulc iutos I i hard is It situations. public most in strik­ is which one is there accurately, ingly absent. In the play the man’s man’s the play the in but arecrucial; humanity andwarmth In absent. ingly Gramsci himself. While Ben Kingsley’s Kingsley’s Ben While himself. Gramsci h ltrr dsrpin of Gramsci f o descriptions in literary attributes the certain catches depiction of portrayal the be must serious most tary” inaccuracies, o f which by far the far by which f o inaccuracies, tary” igly ae a ovnig hunch­ convincing a makes Kingsley commands and his propaganda.” propaganda.” his his and into commands energy tyrannical most lvr ecp b ifsn the infusing by except slavery o re isl fo age-old from himself free to unable to action, unable in islander except out the open pent-up f o deeper, rage the sometimes resentment, is sometimes rebellion pathy from his humour . . . His . . . humour his sym­ f o from trace allpathy removes logic om lvd u wt tyrannic with sarcasm, out poisonous lived dogma to quickly critical, a has voice The . . . body etutv eg, t ioy turns irony its edge, destructive the overwhelmed has brain The “ N o Great Orator Great o N pehs o h wres n h Fiat the in workers the a to to on speeches climbs Gramsci room. hotel shown. has Griffiths otu aoe h sae e t make to set stage the the above of rostrum tenor naturalistic the disrupt argument central the in engaged policies, Comintern’s the and Leninism that At spiteful. and cross-grained as t s xesvl ulkl h wud have both would he unlikely f o excessively is it follower devoted a as time, well as calculating, and mechanical too perhaps,been had, he e.g.) 1920 course (in that f o was Gramsci private the from h mt e i 12) wee e ad — said he where 1922), Julia in wife her his events met the (he to after years letter written a Schucht, from come parts o f the central discourse on love love on discourse Vital central source. the its f o parts by remarkable more nelgne hl i te ae un­ f o face the odds. in believable whole intelligence w see i te ly sharply play the in scenes Two confession moving this f o point The This inaccuracy is rendered all the the all rendered is inaccuracy This e rs-rie and cross-grained me alwayslacked. had I what me gave mathe­ came you mere . . . f o calculation? matical intellect, pure ptfl ” . . spiteful. It was this lack that used to make make to used that lack love, this was It me gave and life my into f o matter a everything making tended not hasit as militant, a life strong had never has one when to possible is really it if wondered quality as a revolutionary by by revolutionary a as quality my reduce and sterile me tomake creatures? my on effect human some thishad Hasn’t by individual oneself, loved deeply been not has one when collectivity a love to is it possible if parents; own one’s feelings for anyone, not even for for even not anyone, I for feelings have people of mass a with times links forge many How “ 7 Days 10 November 1971

2

plants (their presence is indicated by a agent like Kabakchiev could have let noisy recording o f crowd sounds, himself be burdened in this fashion, applause, etc.). In this way, an image of either personally or politically. More Gramsci the “ revolutionary” orator is important in terms o f the play, her presented, when in reality (as Angelo unlikely presence is also central. She is Tasca wrote) “ Gramsci was no great there nearly all the time, and the public speaker, and so was really known death-bed dominates the set. She has and liked only within a restricted circle the last word, after Kabak, Gramsci, and o f intellectuals and workers.” The Valletta have gone. And this word is a judgement was confirmed by another terror-stricken conservative nightmare, (perhaps more reliable) agent o f the in the course of which the horrors of Comintern, V. Degott, who wrote in the revolution mingle with the advanc­ 1923 that ing fury of the counter-revolution: a “ Gramsci is much deeper than the world falling into madness. other comrades and is capable o f As against this, the play offers only analysing situations correctly . . . the symbolic hope of Gramsci’s But he has little direct influence “ humanity:” that is, the ideal revolu­ over the masses. In the first place tion not attained in 1920, or since, the he is no orator; and secondly, he revolution governed by love. Kabak is youthful, small in stature, and stands for the successive phases o f hunch-backed, all things which corruption o f the real revolution which affect audiences unfavour­ triumphed in 1917 (“ historical reson­ ably ...” ances” supposedly there in embryo In the case o f the other main charac­ already). Thus, the overall symbolism o f ter, “ Kabak,” the “ non-documentary” the play counterposes a weak ideal to freedom with history is much the heavy symbols o f known reality, the more evident. Here, trapping the agony o f the old order and the ‘degener­ “ resonances o f historical movement” ate’ revolution. means simply conflating different But one can certainly doubt whether epochs o f communist history together. any revolution will ever be regulated by Thus, Kabakchiev the agent o f the early love, without falling straight into the International and Lenin is also “ selling arms o f Kabak. T o say that social out” the revolution (and perhaps even revolutions are necessarily divisive trying to behead it) like a Stalinist whirlwinds, partly inhuman tragedies operative in — e.g. — the Spain o f the where “ love” is swept aside, is not to 1930s, and fixing an international deal justify the kind o f ruthlessness and with Fiat typical o f the 1960s. authoritarianism he stands for here. Comintern policy may, as many writers Hence, the antithesis is a false one have argued, have been disastrous in historically. And its unintentional effect Italy in the early 1920s and inadver­ is rather to throw doubt and discredit tently promoted the rise o f fascism; not, upon the pole meant as ‘positive’: the however, for the motives or in the way hope of popular revolt free from the depicted in this play. blight o f the past. For the over-romantic To take such liberties with history portrait o f Gramsci removes him from implies (naturally) that the point is a history altogether, into a dimension o f symbolic one. Gramsci and Kabak are utopia which it is all too easy to symbols, as much as the dying mistress; discount. The ‘revolutionary’ play and (as with her) the symbolism is not imposes, finally, the sense o f a black, purely historico-political but relates the 1. Antonio Gramsci with some o f the staff o f L'Ordine Nuovo, the weekly doom-laden world, a sense o f fatality “ private” to the “ public” man. Gramsci which is the opposite of revolutionary. is the romantically-conceived symbol of socialist review founded by Gramsci, As for the men who conducted the integrity between personal emotions Tasca, Terracini and Togliatti in Turin great general strike o f April, 1920, and and political conviction, while Kabak in 1919. then the desperate attempt to take over represents their estrangement from each 2 Workers involved in the occupation the factories in September, the engin­ other: a rabid sexist and authoritarian, o f the Lancia factory in Turin on the eering workers o f Turin, who had he can treat his mistress and the servant Lancia factory roof. already seen (in Gramsci’s words) ‘fifty like dirt, “ sacrificing” them in a way 3 Meeting of workers representing the thousand soldiers in the city, gun analogous to the way he would sacrifice factory councils o f Fiat meeting in the batteries ready on the - hills . . . the masses in a revolution. The weight office o f Giovanni Agnelli (founder and armoured cars roaming the streets, of symbolism concentrated here there­ chairman o f Fiat.) Sitting behind machine-guns trained on the houses, on fore ranges far indeed from the happen­ Agnelli’s desk is Giovanni Parodi, all bridges and crossroads, and on the ings o f 1920 in Turin, and embraces (or workers, one o f the leading militants. factory-gates’ — they appear in the play perhaps clutches at) the widest 4- During the factory occupations in only as sound off-stage. Gramsci would questions o f human nature and revolu­ Turin, the factory councils organised probably have disliked this aspect o f it tion. The ambition may in some sense small groups o f armed workers to particularly, himself. And since his most “ justify” the play’s historical wildness; defend the factories against attack. This marked intellectual trait was an intense, only at the cost, though, o f making the is a group o f Red Guards. astringent respect for the historically symbolic message itself quite crucial to 5 Front page o f Ordine Nuova, the the whole endeavour. What is being weekly socialist review founded by concrete, the particular contours o f both ideas and men, he would also have stated? Gramsci and other, 1919. “The workers The question is doubly underlined by loved Ordine Nuovo . .. because they disliked any idolization o f himself along the formal style and presentation o f the found a part o f themselves in the these lines. He might have respected play. Its remarkable accumulation o f articles o f the paper, the best part o f something o f the generous attention symbolic and “ philosophical” notions is themselves" (Antonio Gramsci). behind Occupations, but hardly its not presented “ diagramatically,” in a 6 Inside the Lancia Factory in Turin, intellectual and theatrical realization. way helping to distance the spectator 1920. During the occupation pro­ from them and perceive them as what duction continued, organised by the they are, wide-ranging and ahistorical factory councils. speculations. On the contrary, anchored Occupations was first presented by the to one heavy set (except for the two Stables Theatre, Manchester, last year. factory scenes) the ideas emerge some­ It was then taken on a tour o f Southern what didactically. The effect is England by the RSC before coming to magnified by the two speeches at Fiat The Place for its London Premiere. which, though formally distinct, are in effect delivered at the audience (which Photographs by courtesy of Centro “ takes the place” o f the workers). Pierro Gobetti, Turin.

Nightmare Readers interested in Gramsci should turn first to Giuseppe Fiori’s biography Furthermore, among the play’s Antonio Gramsci: Life of a Revolution­ “ symbols,” one occupies a special (and ary (NLB, 1970, £2.75) and then to the specially symbolic) place: the dying excellent new English edition of The aristocrat, representative o f the ancient Prison Notebooks (Lawrence & Wishart, regime’s agony and extremity. The 1971, £6) edited and introduced by point is not only the improbability (to Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Quintin put it mildly) that a zealous Comintern H oare. 7 DAYS h op es t o publish a longer feature on Gramsci shortly.

19 7 Days 10 November 1971

Playboy Art S T R A by Maxine Molyneux

An exhibition entitled ‘Beyond Illu­ stration — The Art o f Playboy’ opens next week at the Royal College of Art. The 71 exhibits are a selection o f works commissioned for publication in the magazine and form a small part o f the art collection o f Hugh Heffner, Playboy boss. Little known illustrators and car­ toonists form a large part o f the exhibition; but there are also pictures by Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Larry Rivers and George Segal. Not surprisingly, Pop art is the most representative style. The inclusion of works by ‘estab­ lished’ artists has given ‘The Art of Playboy’ an aura o f seriousness and " respectability” , successfully diverting any criticism onto a purely aesthetic level. As Joy Law, the exhibition’s Above: Frank Gallo ‘Playmate’ organiser at the RCA said, “ We agree to Right: Martin Hoffman put it on because, after all it’s their art ‘Terminal Misunderstanding’ collection, not their girlie collection.” The Students’ Union at the RCA magazine they needn t be ashamed o f were “ too involved with internal poli­ buying. It is “ serious.” At least that is tics” to do anything about it until last the image it aims for. week when they finally passed a resolu­ The contradiction between the image tion objecting to “ the principle o f the and the reality o f Playboy, — what it is Playboy Club being able to use College and what it pretends to be, is echoed in facilities to forward their own prestige.” its readership. Before that, they too, thought it was an Two thirds o f Playboy’s readers earn innocuous art exhibition. less than £2,000 a year, yet the advert­ Playboy is remarkably successful at isements consistently promote a way o f appearing innocuous; it excels in the life far beyond their means. packaging o f its unsavoury ideology to The contents o f the magazine make conceal its repellent aspects. accessible to the readers a world about which they can usually only dream. The Right People Read Playboy Reality is always kept at a safe An exhibition o f this kind is a distance; human relationships become valuable asset to Playboy’s debonair depersonalised; women are consumed image. Just as it carries its token like products. The Club girls are not think-piece and laudatory letters from women but ludicrous caricatures. The university dons, it arranges art exhi­ images in the magazine are enjoyed bitions to reassure its readers that it is only vicariously, and even their own no mere girly magazine. The right sexuality is not allowed to intrude into people read it; it is urbane, intelligent, — the voyeur’s dream-world lest it almost a status symbol. It is the threatens his image o f himself. Women in Cages Three Million People Listen to Woman’s Hour it — to go out to work, perhaps, because caves in and they escape. Or is it that belong, charity is the only answer. The mental states o f the confined listeners is by Emma Tennant after all your home doesn’t belong to mens’ jobs would be threatened if they line between the deserving and the to look at the advice and admonish­ you; the mortgage is in your husband’s knew too much? undeserving poor is drawn — and some ments handed out from above. There is name — and you ’ve lost your heart. You Although 67 per cent o f Woman’s people don’t seem to deserve a Blessed great emphasis on the pointlessness of W O M A N ’S H O U R S won’t last long in the outside world Hour listeners are working class and the House at all. Unmarried mothers, for worrying. Humour is resigned, with the A third selection. without one. So it seems rather strange housing ‘problem’ in this country instance: it is hard to figure out why exception of an excellent poke at BBC Publications £1.25 that in a talk entitled ‘T oo Old’, John appears almost insoluble to the Tory illegitimate children aren’t stricken with British embassies abroad by Estelle Parsons tells us “ that to be abruptly Government, a conspiratorial as-middle- this belonging urge. But then we must Holt. Things are as they are, and pain Three million people listen to taken from the mainstream o f active class-as-thou tone persists in the pro­ remember it’s a reciprocal deal. Your must be accepted. Selfishness is bad but business life and to walk up and down Woman’s Hour. 67 per cent are gramme. “ Homelessness can happen to heart can only belong in the home if the self-love is good (not that woman in the open prison o f Not Belonging is a ‘people like us’,” Nancy Richards ex­ home belongs to you. finding themselves alone in the after­ working class; 76 per cent are grim experience” . Surely home is where plains. “ That the nightmare o f home­ “ Who wants to be sexually equal?” , noon are encouraged to masturbate). women at home. Or rather, as the you belong? It is accepted that the 76 lessness, when there seemed to be no cries Dorothy Gharboui in the section The world is an unchanging village, and heading of the section entitled per cent of woman at home who are organisation, official or otherwise, with . ‘The Diversities o f People’. “ Women like all villages has an idiot: “ We too,” ‘What Makes a Home?’ would have listening to Mr Parsons’ agonies in fact both the will and power to help today are bullied by popular psychol­ announces C. Gordori Glover in a talk live in open prisons? Of course not: it, residents of something called us . . . there was no Shelter when it ogists into believing they have to re­ called ‘The Unsettled’ “ have a near­ unless This Blessed House is the latest happened to my sons and me.” It seems spond to their husbands with equal relative who is the ‘odd one’ ... a ‘This Blessed House’. We had euphemism for internment camp. It’s there’s no way of making sure that ardour. For instance they mustn’t, while conversationalist of great charm, well- better go in and find out what just that it’s different for them. every one has somewhere to live with­ amorously engaged, do shopping-lists in read, left-wing, a devotee o f Wagner, happens there. First, home is out 70 per cent of the female popu­ their heads. Why ever not? . . . If female Schoenberg and the Beatles.” You see — where your heart is. “I think”, What To Do At Home? lation having to belong there full time. society were really composed of all there are still these odd people about. proclaims Mary Stott, “that What can you do at home? Probably, When ‘people like us’ have nowhere to those passionate birds getting carried But too much time is taken up with although conditioned from early child­ away by their desires, life would be making the All-Purpose Duster and the simple saying is as near to a true hood to expect a home o f your own and chaos.. .A man can sink into an arm­ home-made hand cream to feel dis­ definition as we can get.” Well, to spend the rest o f your life in it, you chair when he comes home from turbed by them. If worrying persists, over two million women would be can’t mend it when it falls down. Men work . .. but his partner has to wash the take a trip in a night train. (There are dead if their hearts weren’t where come and do that. Even technical supper dishes.” several pieces about this, reflecting the their bodies had to be, so this is appliances hold menace for the pro­ Perhaps this explains the opening desperate need o f women to get out of fessional amateur: the housewife. “ Mild, sentence of Clement Freud’s talk — ‘I the house. A night train seems to be reassuring news. And not only are well-mannered twin tubs take a funny like the smell of clean women’. H e recommended therapy). And if perma­ bodies and hearts moving as one, turn when I approach,” admits Mary pleads against the use o f scent, sug­ nent discontent sets in, Yehudi Menuhin they both “ belong” there. Hampson in her talk, ‘Machines’. “ I just gesting that women should plunge them­ states firmly that England is “ a country don’t have what it takes with a washing selves in a yoghurt bath before going to play Chamber music in and to work “ It might be much more efficient” , machine, but give me a stream and stone out. Wouldn’t washing-up liquid do just with one’s colleagues too, better than Mary Stott goes on, “if we pooled our and I can beat it out with the best o f as well? The man, slowly aroused by the anywhere else. ” resources and lived communally, sharing them.” stench from the kitchen sink as he dozes How could anyone suppose that this wasn’t the most perfect society in the common services to provide us with Yes; but the best o f who? England is in his armchair, waits for the time when world? Nicholas Tomalin tells us, “ we meals, cleaning, laundry, a nursery. remarkable for an absence o f peasant the dishes are dried and shopping lists are nearer to genuine equality in British Only it probably wouldn’t be ‘ home. washer-women beating it out on the will be murmured in his ear . . . Is this society today than we’ve ever been or We shouldn’t feel we had a special place banks o f detergent-polluted streams. really what it’s like once you belong to ever will be.” It’s difficult to know how that we belonged to and belonged to Can it be that girls aren’t taught at a home? genuinely equal those 76 per cent of us” . Now we’re getting nearer the mark: school the rudiments o f plumbing and Saying What To Do women-at-home feel, but at least) they your heart belongs in the home and in building? This must be a dangerous One way o f gauging the supposed know they mustn’t worry. return your home belongs to you. Leave situation — suppose the open prison

20 7 Days 10 November 1971

'We’re not beautiful ’' We’renot ugly’

A year ago these shouts from Women’s Liberation demonstrators scared Bob Hope and disrupted the Miss World competition. Today for the twenty first year Miss World is with us again. 7 DAYS looks at this sexist money-spinning Mecca Mart

The Miss World Competition is not an erotic the stage when Bob Hope was speaking. In exhibition; it is a public celebration of the the same way we threw nothing when the Mss World contestants were going into the traditional female road to success. The Café de Paris. This was a conscious decision. Albert Hall is miles away from the We regard these contestants as unfortunate underground world of pornography. The victims o f the male capitalist system. This atmosphere is emphatically respectable, system, that makes money by persuading enlivened by contrived attempts at women to buy goods such as false eyelashes. We are sick of all this line about beauty. We “glamour”. The conventionality of the are not beautiful and we are not ugly.” girls’ lives and the ordinariness of their aspirations — “ Judge the Judges, not the Girls” Miss Grenada (Miss World): “Now I’m The first Miss World contest took place in 1951. looking for the ideal man to marry” — is It coincided with the Festival o f Britain, the the keynote o f all the pre- and centenary o f the Great Exhibition, which post-competition publicity. Their condition celebrated the Nation’s post-war recovery and demonstrated its continued technological inven­ is the condition o f all women, bom to be tiveness. defined by their physical attributes, born At the Festival Hall on the South Bank leading to give birth, or if born pretty, born lucky, manufacturers displayed up-to-date items o f a condition which makes it possible and interest for international consumption, with the acceptable within the bourgeois ethic, for firm intention o f putting Britain once more on the map. On the North Bank, at the Lyceum, Mecca girls to parade, silent and smiling, to be Ltd. presented their new invention — an judged on the merits o f their figures and international beauty contest. The organiser, Eric faces. (Bob Hope — “ Pretty girls don’t have Morley, lamented the fact that, “ in those days those problems.” i.e. the problems that some countries hadn’t even heard o f beauty plain girls have in finding a husband or contests” . So o f course, he congratulates the company bosses for “ shrewdly anticipating the making a successful career. Womens public appetite for such an event” . The “ event” liberation girls must be plain, because only has helped make Mecca into a £20 million plain girls would have an interest in enterprise. attacking the system.) Prior to the Miss World contest, Mecca ballrooms throughout the country had been running contests o f the “ outright” — that is, outdated — type. Local girls paraded in bikinis, or The Grand Duke’s Bride stars and G-strings and were disqualified by the Standards o f conventional beauty are, o f course, audience jeering at their “ under- or over-weight what Miss World is all about. Living up to these statistics” . standards is a part o f the fabric o f every woman’s life, not just of those groomed for the “37-24-36” competitions. In the early Russian State, the The new brand of contestants, unlike those o f Grand Duke’s bride was chosen by a similar the “ outright” type, were seen as National contest. The Duke’s men went out and chose the Representatives selected in order to stand up to 1500 most beautiful girls in the kingdom, a short international competition. T o start with Morley list o f 250 paraded before the Grand Duke’s looks for what he calls “ basic material” girls window, and he then made the final choice. This between 17 and 25, ideally 5ft 7/2in, 8 or 9 stone, barbaric byzantine practice has now been turned — waist 22-24" hips 35-36" bust 36-37", “ no more in essence — into a money-spinning institution. no less” , a lovely face, good teeth, plenty o f hair Miss World is the annual festival, brought direct by and perfectly shaped legs from front and back — television into our own homes, o f the everyday carefully checked for “ such defects as slightly commercialisation o f women’s sexuality. One o f knocked knees” . Then with the “ basic material” the demonstrators at last year’s Miss World plus the aid of cosmetics and a deportment school, Contest said during her trial: he manufactures the “ perfect product” . It is a “ I felt that the event symbolised my daily sound capital investment since overheads are low. exploitation. I saw the contestants being First of all, raw material is practically free. Morley judged by men, and I know what it feels like proudly affirms that he refuses to pay the girls to be judged and scrutinised every day when travelling expenses, gives them only board and I am just walking down the street. I saw lodging and a small allowance. Secondly, labour, women being forced to compete with each represented by performance, is unpaid except for other and being judged by men. I felt for the winners £2,500. Mecca makes up for this in them. I had no intention o f hurting them or the long run since Miss World is obliged to sign a attacking them in any way. We did not contract for future appearances. The contestants throw anything on to the stage when the were forced to make so many appearances that as Four Miss Worlds from the Sixties. Clockwise from op L eft: Miss Penelope Plummer from Australia contestants were there. We threw missiles on early as 1952 they threatened to go on strike. m ss Lesley Langley from the United Kingdom, Miss Reita Faria from India, Miss Ann Sidney from the United Kingdom. 21