Win Your Next Pageant
Get Pageant Questions Written By A Miss Universe Judge
Welcome to my mini-series, Why Are Beauty Pageants, where I’ll be exploring the sticky, messy world of beauty pageants. Particularly Miss South Africa which has a history of sexism, racism, and scandal. Today, I’ll be giving a brief history from all the information I could find about Miss South Africa from 1958 to 2021. If there’s anything I’ve missed or you would like to add, please comment below!
Stay tuned for the next part of the series where we’ll be taking a look at the 1970 Miss World pageant and Women’s Liberation Protest, whether pageants can be empowering AND debunking the bra burning feminist myth
0:00 My Miss SA audition
2:29 Intro
6:06 1921 Miss America is Born
8:14 1951 The International Pageants
11:20 1970 The Black Miss South Africa
13:01 1977 Miss SA Segregates
13:37 1992 Miss SA Isn’t White
16:04 2000 The Sol Kerzener Years
20:07 2018 Black Queens Are Snubbed
22:49 2019 Miss SA Rebrands
For business enquiries, email me khenzonatalia@gmail.com
Sign up to my newsletter here: www.khensani.xyz
Instagram:
Twitter:
If you can and would like to support me financially, you can make any sized donation to my PayPal:
SOURCES
Origins of Miss America
Apartheid’s End Transform Beauty show
Nani Mokoena’s Miss Johannesburg loss
Miss South Africa from Union to Democracy
The racist, sexist history of beauty pageants
VIDEOS
Miss World 1958
Miss World 1970
Miss World 1993
Miss World 1994
Miss South Africa 1977
Miss South Africa 1988
Miss South Africa 1991
Miss SA 1992 Crowning
Miss South Africa 1993 Crowning
Miss South Africa 1994 Crowning
Miss Universe 1952
Miss Universe 1978 Crowning
Miss SA Snubs Pre-1993 Black winners
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and this channel does not claim any right over them.
This history of Miss South Africa covers the first 1921 Miss America pageant, the 1951 Miss World pageant, Miss Africa South 1970 Pearl Jansen, Miss South Africa 1992 Amy Kleinhans, Miss South Africa 1993 Palesa Jacqui Mofokeng, the first Miss Universe South Africa Margaret Gardiner, Miss World South Africa Penny Coelen, Demi-Leigh Nel Peters, Zozibini Tunzi, Jo-Ann Strauss, Miss World 1970 Jennifer Hosten…(read more at source)
ON SALE: Pageant Resale
GET 365 FREE: Pageant Questions
VIEW MORE: Miss America Videos
LEARN ABOUT OTHER: Beauty Pageants
The intro 😂😂I love you ma'am
Love the intro ❤️👌🏾
You're so brilliant! You'd make an excellent academic.
Your intro was my absolute favorite 😂😂😂 I really enjoy your content!!
There's actually only been 1 Indian winner thus far.
What a brilliant intro 😂🔥🔥
I wanna skin you & wear you arrrrrg obsessed!❣
800 plus views and only 157 likes. if you just watch and leave without engagement, I will hunt you down! xoxo
The 60th Anniversary not inviting or acknowledging Miss Africa South or zthe Black Miss SAs was just.
Yah nor
It's the introduction for me 😅 and the whole informative video even when it's full of opinion 💛
I am extremely excited that this is a whole series. So they really just switched South and Africa and coined it inclusive during the Apartheid era lol.
I doubt the contestants of today know this very interesting and important history of Miss SA, I mean I didn't know much. It's also so weird that I thought I KNEW Basetsana Khumalo was the first Black Miss SA 😂
Loved this video
This was beautifully done! Really excited to learn more through the rest of your series ❤️!
The theatrics at the start are even better knowing that you made the dress yourself lol big drama kid energy
This was such an incredible watch!
I had NO idea re:the different pageants established & all this history. I think the direction beauty pageants have taken in the past 4yrs though is only a sign of the time. With the general commodification of activism they only would’ve followed – & in some sense it’s opened up the conversation to a different crowd. What Zozi’s win also did though was bring back the ‘celebrity’ element to pageants, in ways that had been lost before unless you were plugged into the space. (Although this was also def influence by general social media culture)
However if Ms SA is going to continue running the activism band-wagon it is only right that they acknowledge their past… which we know they probably won’t
"…the most desirable and only the most desirable amongst us" 😭♥️
I can't wait for your channel to blow up!!
The intro is taking me all the way out 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The beginning monologue 😭😂
🗣🗣🗣 Or release Pink Friday!
The power that has!
The intro 😂😂♥️
The Apartheid govt was so trifling 😫 'Miss Africa South'🥴
This intro…i can't stand you 😭😭😭
Proper and through history on Miss SA. Didn't even know Miss Africa South was a thing.
😂😂you killed the intro
"Charity and kindness isn't for ugly people"… word
THIS IS AN INTRO 😭😭😂😂♥️♥️
This video does in itself create allot of misconceptions of what pageantry is turning out to be or well atleast in the case of Miss South Africa. Whilst I do appreciate the enthusiasm and the depth of research behind the video (truly I appreciate it – I learnt so much about the earlier years or rather you filled in allot of grey areas with your opinion piece). But I do feel that if you’re going to be objective, you have to be objective of both sides of the angle otherwise you’re also just creating allot of false narratives and retrenching the organization (Miss South Africa) into a pit that it is genuinely trying to work itself out of.
Let’s start with 2017, Steph Weil of Weil entertainment had been prior for all the years been an employee of the Miss South Africa organization when it was still owned by sun international.
And so considerations on her involvement within the organization need to be accounted for. We should not be remiss of this because she has seen the organization move through various phases of its life cycle. And so much of these cycles that we see in current times are because of her (as will be elaborated below).
Under her leadership we’ve seen national and international interest pour into the country’s pageant system because of the work that is actually being done and the tools it’s gives to upskill young women from all corners of this country as possible future leaders or whatever they should desire.
– Institutionally by this I mean them having cooperate social events that allow entrants to network with their potential future employees genuinely means that there is an element of empowerment (here we’re talking about skills uplift-ment, job opportunities whether it be in media, the cooperate sector or even in health- this factor alone creates space where certain personal disparities are given bridges ) the opportunities that are provided by this organization are immeasurable.
I also feel that you in-part still carry outdated and antiquated ideas of what the organization is trying to achieve in especially recent years or if you do understand the work that’s being done then you simply grouped that work under certain nuances that which objectively I view as stemming from personal bias (hence no validity to their work is given credit in this video)- and this is not an attack on you but I’m mainly highlighting how one dimensional this entire presentation is (and that as I’ve observed from the comments has created consensus on a limited narrative. This history is soooo important but the work currently being done also deserves spotlight ).
So much of their work from 2017 onwards has been rooted in the empowerment of women as I’ve already alluded. And to downplay this as a gimmick or marketing strategy aimed at baiting the general public’s consensus on certain standards that really shouldn’t and or should be the norm is really insulting to the people that actually work and commit themselves behind the scenes to putting in a tentative amount of work toward making Miss South Africa what it is today (A beacon of inclusivity, inclusion, equity, transformation, the celebration of actual diversity, redefining beauty standards, redefining ideas around gender as well as sexuality whilst giving any and all individuals who pass through the organization the skillsets to further address whatever social ills that directly inform them, in and out of their social lived experiences at a micro or macro level).
So yeah it really is insulting to the people that genuinely put in the effort to the various endeavors that they’ve embarked on in recent years.
I’ll give references to certain things that nationally and internationally they’ve been able to CHAMPION whilst other spaces that you and the other people in the comments section have identified to be other avenues that allow women to find ‘fame and or exposure in’ – which for me these Avenues have not necessarily been steadfast at addressing the social problems globally experienced (for example you mentioned actor, pop culture and modeling spaces, somewhere in the comments are more inclusive then actual pageants and to the context of SA I highly disagree with this, actually even at international level).
Because with the Miss South Africa organization we’ve seen these girls use their platform as spokespersons for really important causes in recent years and these often stem from personal experiences and not because they’re relevant topics:
Demi (Miss SA 2017 and Miss Universe 2017) founded her unbreakable campaign after a horrific hijacking incident that she went through- from this she formed a self developed initiative that nationally and internationally has helped women or any other potential victims of gender based violence with classes for self defense and actual empowerment events that speak to why GBV in societies need to end.
Post her title she is still working on these project /advocacy’s because these are actual passion projects- link to latest initiative – https://www.instagram.com/p/CQZBWm7nV0Z/?utm_medium=copy_link .
Like wise with Tamaryn Green (Miss SA 2018) who launched her self developed “BreakTheStigma” campaign that really drew from a clinical and health based interest has been influential at raising awareness on TB (SAs number one killer and to that she too is also a survivor ), she still works on bringing awareness around this issue because once again it’s an actual passion and not some baited response to fore-filling her then national duty as an ambassador to South Africa internationally- latest update on her passion project – https://www.facebook.com/100044183151911/posts/294925375323565/?d=n (mind you because of her work she is also recognized as a UN Health ambassador for TB).
Her passion has undoubtedly found global footprint internationally, mind you TB was not a trending topic in 2018 – https://www.facebook.com/289446947817747/posts/1891507897611636/?d=n (global citizen)
I’d also like to discuss Zozibini because yikes in my POV you really minimized the barriers that she broke and limited them as some #blackgirlmagic slogan baited at the fact that movement is currently was and still is mainstream.
And that’s so saddening because she is not the first to stand with that message, even before it was mainstream so many other people stood for it however she is credited for amplifying it by virtue of her winning (which in of it itself is really monumental and important toward affirming the lived experience of black girls internationally who have and still timely been taught self limiting beliefs that imposed on their identities, livelihoods etc for simply being born female and black. And this is still a huge social disparity that still needs much focus to it (I’m sure you can relate even though you seemingly found it be cheesy for the lack of a better word).
Anyway by her simply being herself, she broke multiple barriers and redefined beauty standards globally by just presenting in her most authentic state- which I’m a witness too because so many people who come from countries with Eurocentric standards of beauty yet have black populations spoke out and said her win was less deserved because her runner up was more beautiful then her (for simply having features that have been forever defined as the global standard). And this is why whatever she said is beyond powerful -she simply spoke the truth and that ignited a global conversation on what should be considered as beautiful and what are beauty conventions. This is all a really small aspect of her win but this is an area of focus that she championed that had far reaching global impact!
And in my opinion- No actor, actress, model etc has ever come close to shifting the conversation and flipping the scriptures in the way that she did toward addressing pertinent issues at a global level (the only two people who are probably capable at doing this are Beyonce and Oprah but hey their platforms have had other equally important things in terms of representation and justice to affirm).
And so somehow you not getting why so much of what she stood for and still currently does….not move you > in the same breath as perhaps that it did for me, mostly means to me that you still have a limited perception of what pageantry is in general.
Pageantry isn’t anymore focused on the beauty rhetoric or on the convention of “being famous for just being famous” – this is a popular misconception.
Pageant are “women’s empowerment platforms” and not “beauty pageants” (two different things with different intentions)- I think I’ve provided sufficient reasons as to why some of the notions presented in the video are then dated and or are false narratives.
I, too, want to see an end to jorts :'''(