The Making of Ghana: beauty pageants, nationalism and international legitimacy

the significance of the 1957 beauty pageant in establishing legitimacy in Ghana and the wider international community

The 1957 Ghanaian beauty pageant which had been introduced by Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah following independence from British imperialism was lauded for representing the beauty and energy of the newly independent nation of Ghana. It was an opportune campaign for the new nation to legitimise itself among its citizens, as well as within the international community by proving that it was viable nation full of potential and capital.

At the 1957 Miss Ghana pageant, five girls represented each of the colonial regional configurations established by the British Empire in the years preceding 1957: the Trans-Volta Togoland, Ashanti Region, Western Region, Northern Territories and the Eastern Regions. Miss Trans-Volta Togoland, Monica Amekaofia, was crowned the winner of the pageant and Miss Edith Addo (Miss Accra), the proxime accessit. In the foreground of a large flag of Ghana with their regions printed clearly on the sashes they wore as they fashioned their cultural hair and dress, each woman proudly represented her respective region. Mertus’ understanding of nationalism where, ‘national identity is determined not on the basis of its own intrinsic properties but as a function of what it (presumably) is not’ (Mertus, 1994) can be applied as it reveals that the pageant showed that Ghana was a nation which accepted the cultural, economic and political differences which existed within its borders. Furthermore, it shows that Ghana was not a nation which forced the homogenisation of cultures, but rather protected ‘the ‘uniqueness of the national identities through an emphasis on heritage, history and a shared collective “imagined community”’ (Spillman 1997 quoted in Balugon, 2012, p. 359), allowing the seamless unification of each territory into one. As a result of this, the 1957 Miss Ghana beauty pageant must be recognised as a primal nationalist campaign in the making of the Ghanaian nation.

(HuntleyFilmArchives, 1957)

In the pageant, Monica was contestant number 9 and following her victory, people from the Volta Region labelled themselves through the moniker of ‘number 9.’ This proud regional separatism shows that the regional differences established during British colonialism remained intaglioed into the fabric of the nation of Ghana. In 1957 Ghana, a beauty pageant could only do so much in convincing individuals to identify as a member of their nation rather than a member of their region.

At the 1957 Miss Ghana Parade which followed in March as part of the Independence celebrations, there was immense enjoyment in celebration of the pageant and those feelings of joy were inevitably tied to a new national identity following independence from the British Empire. In the Miss Ghana parade which was televised, a variety of elements of Ghanaian culture were displayed on floats – including but not limited to floats dedicated to its winner, Monica Amekoafia, Ghana’s bread production and oil capital. (HuntleyFilmArchives, 1957)

The parade showed the nation’s citizens and all those in the international audience that Ghana was a country with an abundance of natural resources, domestic skill, fun, beauty capital and culture. This can be examined further in relation to the international pageantry community which Ghana introduced itself via the 1957 Miss Ghana pageant.

(HuntleyFilmArchives, 1957)

While the pageant and the subsequent celebrations were a powerful symbolism of national unity and were a partially effective way of legitimising the nation to its citizens, the political, social and economic milieu it existed in meant that Miss Ghana 1957 and its winner was used as a tool to establish the legitimacy of the nation of Ghana among the international community through the beauty queen’s beauty capital and simple ontology introducing her to a network of beauty queens throughout the globe, particularly in the case of England. As part of her victory, Monica Amekoafia was awarded a trip to London. A newspaper article was published on page 3 of the Daily Graphic on the day of Monica’s departure, and it recounted her activities of shopping, travel planning and hairstyling which she engaged in prior to her flight. That Monica shopped at an Accra Kingsway Store, where she was given an insight into some aspect of living in Britain (Daily Graphic, 1957), was likely noted to appeal to national consumers who sought to experience a mote of British life and culture. Britain was viewed as a haven and its inaccessibility for many meant they desired it all the more. Hence, the centrality of British culture to Ghanaian society’s desires implies that the independent Ghanaian identity wasn’t as removed from British influence as perhaps was intended. Another article titled ‘And Britain Will See Her’ about Monica’s victory supports this.

When she arrived in London, Monica was fashioned in kente and her sash which read ‘Miss Ghana’ as opposed to ‘Miss Trans-Volta Togoland’ and this identification through her sartorial choices shows that she acted as a cultural ambassador of the new nation of Ghana. Her decision to do so proudly informed her audience of her identity as a Ghanaian and solidified the link between female physical beauty and the values of the Ghanaian nation. Monica spent one out of her ten days with Miss Great Britain, Iris Waller and the two of them walked with linked arms around Mayfair where Iris took Monica to Deanfield Furs to try on a £1000 mink jacket (considered extremely chic at the time) and the luxury Asprey jewellers. The apparent friendship, closeness and sisterhood displayed by the two beauty pageant queens of Ghana and Britain indicates that the new nation of Ghana thought it important to establish a cordial (and even friendly) relationship in the years following dissolution from British imperialism. Monica’s trip to England, then, showed that Ghana was a nation which possessed beauty capital (among other forms of capital). The trip had been considered beneficial, integral or even simply a nice way to display Ghana’s compatibility with a global community, especially that of Britain, following their independence.

The 1957 Miss Ghana Beauty pageant then, could be viewed as successful in legitimising Ghana as a viable nation within the international community, especially in regards to Britain. as a Pathé News journalistic video which documented and televised the day from the moment Monica disembarked from the (British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) aircraft concludes with the statement: ‘London is very glad to welcome a charming representation of a brand-new country.’ (Pathe, 1957)

Bibliography

Balogun, O. M. (2012). Cultural and Cosmopolitan: Idealized Femininity and Embodied Nationalism in Nigerian Beauty Pageants. Gender & Society, 26(3), 357-381. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243212438958

Daily Graphic, 1957 https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/The-story-of-how-over-100-men-proposed-to-first-ever-winner-of-Miss-Ghana-contest-1884041#google_vignette

HuntleyFilmArchives, Miss Ghana Parade, 1957 - Film 61647:

Julie Mertus, "Woman" in the Service of National Identity, 5 Hastings Women's L.J. 5 (1994). Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hwlj/vol5/iss1/

Pathé News, Miss Ghana Comes To Town (1957)

Spillman LP. Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia. Cambridge University Press; 1997.